NanoArt: Teeny Tiny Landscapes

The invention of the electron microscope is 1930s radically changed how we see and understand the world. A hydrothermal worm half a millimeter long becomes a creature out of Star Wars. Or zoom out from an underwater tropical tree, and you’ll find it’s a human hair seen at one billionth of a meter. With new technology developed over the past decade, a number of scientists — or some hybrid creatures, part scientist and part artist — have gone past observing the atomic landscape to creatively shaping it, creating miniscule sculptures and other works known as NanoArt.

Cris Orfescu, a scientist in Southern California, wants to make sure you don’t call his NanoArt “pictures”; you can’t use a lens and aperture to take photos at this scale. The electron microscope penetrates the atomic world, and it has a very distinct 3D negative style that gives the textural landscape a ghostly fuzz. The resulting image is black and white, but many artist-scientists add layers of color, then print the images onto canvas or fine art paper. A nano-landscape can be sculpted through a chemical process. John Hart, a professor of engineering at the University of Michigan, uses a laser to cut patterns like his “Nanobama,” from 2008 — which, to to naked eye, looks like a tiny dot.

Each image from Hart’s “Nanobama” pattern is comprised of 150 million carbon nanotubes. He released the images before the 2008 election with the tagline “Vote for Science.”

(John Hart)

Orfescu curated 60 works from around the world for the3rd International Festival of NanoArt in Romania, which ended yesterday. Orfescu believes “NanoArt could be for the 21st century what photography was for the 20th Century.” He intends the festival to create public awareness of this technology, which has attracted attention mainly from the military. But the real agenda is this: nanotechnology is awesome.

Slideshow: Art Under the Microscope