Nano+Bio+Art

Today we all attempted to escape our clustered lives and examined our senses one by one. We started out with optical illusions. I have spent many hours on my couch, my nose pressed against countless “magic-eye” postcards, waiting patiently for something to pop up, or cocking my head violently to search for the young lady in [...]

DNA: They are the building blocks to all life. These miniscule, ancient nucleic acids have perfected their technique of constructing us for millions and millions of years – it only makes sense that they would become the absolute blocks for all constructs. As opposed to proteins, sugars, and lipids, nucleic acids are programmable, cheap, simple, and because [...]

What is art? Pinar courteously broke the artistic experience down for us in despairingly simple terms. Is there an emotional response? Yes? Then it is art. We humans are controlled by our sentimental emotions: there is no sense that escapes this human urge to connect the present to our beloved past. When you listen to Bach’s [...]

How do we find beauty in the things people are repulsed by? What makes the dirty, the vulgar, the disgusting, something to be admired? We stare: we know that the idea, the image, the emotional sensation is disturbing, but we continue to stare. I first encountered this phenomenon today in the Rot Room of the Science Center’s Ecosystems [...]

Art is taking a new direction. This direction is eminent – interactivity permeates every piece we have experienced. Art has become fluid, dependent on the audience. The pieces are no longer something to be admired from afar. We, the former observers, become part of the art. With the infrared motion tracking technology, we activate the pieces as [...]

As I peered into optical microscopes and scanning tunneling microscopes, a thought continued to go through my head, a thought that first formed in the wave lecture: “What is up with B flat?” I tried to ignore it –  “B flat is irrelevant. Look at the zebra fish. See how they glow red.” But it [...]

Every system, from that of the gnat hovering over your left eyelid to that of the giraffe towering over unsuspecting trees, can and will be broken down into the worldwide need for survival. We were introduced to this idea yesterday, with Alan Turing’s simple formula of morphogenesis, and we continued to grasp this concept today, when we [...]

The mumbles of students continues to ring when Giacomo Chiari stands. His thick white hair falls into his eyes as he bends to project his slideshow. There are computer problems. “I guess some technology isn’t for the better, eh?” Chiari laughs. The moment his presentation lights up, he beams. I instantly thought of a curator of [...]

As I peered into optical microscopes and scanning tunneling microscopes, a thought continued to go through my head, a thought that first formed in the wave lecture: “What is up with B flat?” I tried to ignore it –  “B flat is irrelevant. Look at the zebra fish. See how they glow red.” But it [...]

I go to a girls’ school. Our teachers teach us to live with a certain self-righteousness: they feed this righteousness by introducing us to more and more of the successful women who were able to break the boundaries of social expectations that came with our gender. Every year, we found ourselves wading deep into women [...]