Bio Art: Energy
The process of research, discovery and experimentation
ROM visit
October 4th, 2016
Indigenous Cultures Exhibit
Notes and thoughts:
-Water as a living being/energy of the earth
-Spiritual energy expressed and explored through dance and song
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There is an understanding of energy and mass not being lost, but "recycled;" changing forms
Law of Conservation of Mass:
"The law of conservation of mass states that mass in an isolated system is neither created nor destroyed by chemical reactions or physical transformations."
Biodiversity Exhibit
Species formed through many structure, energy and movement combinations (evident in endemic species?)
Slow rock formations show a history frozen through time (formed through time, energy and pressure).
This is somewhat reminiscent of the phenomenon known as entropy.
Earth's Treasures Exhibit
The shape of the molecule determines the overall shape and structure of the mineral, and how it grows (lattices)
Types of shapes: cubic, tetragonal, trigonal, hexagonal, monoclinic, triclinic, orthohombic...
Depicted here are naturally formed cubic shaped crystal.
The process of stalactite & stalagmite formations; formed over long periods of time
Silicon is an essential component of all electronic devices..."dem sophisticated rocks doh," I think to myself...
Here is a rock formation with more below the surface than meets the eye.
Inspiration pop
During our discussions as a group, we talked about sound energy, the rise in global temperatures, and I was somehow reminded of someone who invented a hand-powered flashlight that harnesses heat energy.
After some research I found her again; her name is Ann Makosinski, and not only did she invent this flashlight but also a mug that harnesses heat energy and can then charge a phone. There is a TEDxTeen blurb about her and she has been on the Jimmy Fallon show (which is probably where I first heard of her).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Vwq1pkrXNQ (Links to an external site.)
Robot Teletuby
October 18th, 2016
Materials
The flashlight invention made me think more about what kind of materials to use and how they serve the function of the device. It also made me think about renewable/sustainable energy sources since it is powered by the heat of the hand.
I got this book as a small gift from my high school library. I had been reading through it about different kinds of sources of energy, and now it seems it could come in very handy in our research. It's chapters cover wind, solar, geothermal, biofuel, hydropower and more.
Inspiration pop
More on materials
Together as a group we watched the TED talk done by Kate Hartman to learn about her practice. The way she interacts with others and the world around her using her pieces is absolutely creative and unique. Seeing her work and hearing her talk about her process and idea development, it reminded us to have fun with our project. It was also a reminder that not only can we use a range of materials but, we can also use them in any form, amount and combination too. To go at it with an explorative intent.
Some Fundamental Thoughts on Energy
Nov - Dec
• • •
While researching the basic concepts of energy and doing some light research into physics, I came to learn about inertia and entropy, which I will talk about in a moment. I also had the exciting responsibility of researching the "materials" aspect of our ideas, which entails finding out how some things work and what they are made of. These things could be technologies like thermoelectric energy and photosynthesis and much more of course. One very interesting thing I learned is how interchangeable and transferable energy is and about the many forms it can take on.
It may be a little backwards to start looking at this now, the basic concepts of energy, after already having brainstormed some initial ideas, and doing research into specific things. But its never too late or early for a refresher!
Inertia
After watching a playlist of Veritasium videos about inertia (something I decided to do during some brainstorming, but am not sure why), I found this law of physics to be quite fascinating in its simplicity. I had seen his science videos before and he explains things in a very conversational way, with visuals and experiments, making certain concepts in physics easier to understand.
Basically, according to the law of inertia, objects tend to want to maintain their state of motion, whether it is at rest or moving. And to change those states of motion requires an external force to act upon it. Sometimes there are variables that can make this difficult, such as friction, which increases the resistance of the object.
The best example of this is the reason why the Earth spins and has been spinning for billions of years (as explained in the video). In space, there is much less resistance than on Earth. But the main reason why the Earth spins is because during its formation, space dust and debris would spin, collide and clump together, making the large body of rock that we know today. The amazing thing here is that the momentum from the Earth's formation causes it to continue to spin, billions of years later.
Entropy
Entropy helps to tie together the idea of energy transferability, which is the way that energy changes form. Entropy is abut disorder and order in the universe, part of which explains how whenever an energy transformation occurs, some energy can be lost in the form of heat (or energy can be consumed from the surrounding environment, absorbing heat). Concerning energy, the more ordered something is, such as organisms like us, then the less of a loss in energy there is (and vice versa).
Ideas sparked from these concepts
One idea that came from this way of thinking about energy, is how to capitalize on things that release a lot of heat energy. The first thing I thought of are break pads on cars. I took Transportation Technology in grade 10 and remembered when taking apart an entire wheel (tire, rim, break pads, gaskets...) the older student explained how hot certain parts got. Anyways, the resulting heat caused by the friction of the break pads and also the rotation of the wheel itself produces a lot of heat energy, and maybe there is a way to capture that.
Exploring how thermoelectric devices work. This is a basic diagram of a peltier tile, which harnesses heat energy and can turn it into a bit of electricity. The flashlight invention mentioned before uses this technology.
Perhaps something like this could harness the heat energy produced from break pads, as mentioned before.
Piezoelectricity is where the energy from pressure and vibrations is harnessed. This is a look, at the molecular level, of how this works and how electric fields appear within this substance (quartz) when pressure is applied.
When electricity is run through this coil it can increase the magnetic field of the magnet substantially. There are many ways in which this phenomenon is used today, such as in generators. But the following image shows how this can be restructured in a way that creates power.
This is a motor powered by the magnetic field around it. The metal loop is continuously propelled from one side to the next, spinning.
Group Change
2nd Semester
The New Group
Before the second semester started, one of the group members for the energy group, Suzanne, switched majors. Although I think its great that she is figuring out what she wants to do and where her passions are situated, she was the one I would mainly bounce ideas off of. She was probably the most enthusiastic of the four of us. I was wondering how the other members of the group would react, when Sarah-Juliet pulled me aside at the beginning of the second semester to comment on my Prosthesis project from last semester. She eventually asked if I would join her new group, whose theme was undecided, and whose attitude towards the process of creating something artistically and organically, without too much emphasis on an end product, was exciting. I had a conversation with my previous group and it seemed that they wanted to entirely change the direction we were going in as well. And so the new groups were formed.
First Group Discussion
As an introduction into the new group, we shared what it is that each of us are interested in investigating (biologically). At first I wasn't sure what to say; there were too many things that I could see myself investigating further. But they said to go ahead and name everything that came to mind, I did, and they were totally cool with it. I just named the different scientific categories, biology, chemistry, astronomy, physics... Things were off to a good start, but we had to narrow down what we wanted to do. And technically I wasn't really helpful with this UNTIL the research for our readings began.
My notes in the binder for BioArt related brainstorming. Interestingly enough, symbiotic relationships was one of the first things I wanted to explore in this group.
After brainstorming possible subjects to research and do the reading presentation on, I narrowed down three that I sent to the group to see what they thought. I didn't expect that one of them, the reading on fungi, would get them so excited.
As you can see from my notes, I researched things like symbiotic relationships, quantum biology, and the senses/sensory organs of different organisms. All of these are very interesting subjects to take further, but the fungi reading was the most concise and clear paper, containing a lot of information in a well organized couple dozen pages. And so we all decided to rot-I mean role--with the fungi.
From here not only did we have to summarize the 20+ page reading (although our group has got some great science background), but we also had to develop a concept for the Bio Art. What concept would we be focusing on? The relationship between fungi and animals, and the fact that they are more closely related to the animal kingdom than the plant kingdom? The fact that they are decomposers? What kind of fungi? In what environment? What medium/media? Should we have a bit of everything and not worry about it being polished just yet? Yes.
My notes here are a result of the brainstorming we did together, trying to get our individual ideas down and then sharing them. Also there are research notes, focusing on the different categories of the fungi that have a symbiotic relationship with plants (specifically their roots).
The Drawings
In the first drawing I explore the mergence of mycorrhizae and plant roots. The fact that they act as a connection between other plants, which helps to warn of the dangers of certain pests, for example, is totally amazing. It was described in the paper as 'internet' for plants.
The second drawing explores the protein signatures that a plant root cell and mycorrhizae use to identify and connect with each other during symbiosis. These are very specific markers, and I compare them, in the drawing, to the markers we have in our blood cells that determine the blood type we have.
Inspiration pop
This image is a link to a TED Talk by Neri Oxman, a bio-design architect would be a good way to describe her work. She is a combination of a scientist, architect and designer. She has found an ethical way to produce silk by cooperating with silk worms in an amazing looking environment and using innovative structures. She uses material constructed out of chitin, (the same thing that makes up the exoskeleton of crabs, for example), to make amazing conceptual extensions to the human body, and more.
Thinking about structure in this creative way and seeing how an organism interacts with and changes a space is pretty much what we are focusing on as a group. We are working with fungal spores to try and transform a structure/space in a meaningful way. At the same time, we want it to grow into something new, once the pre-existing structure is consumed.
The process of making the sculptures
I did my best to document the process as we were making our individual sculptures. These are some photos showcasing my sculpture, while it was being made and then after it was vacuum-formed. We have a video of the vacuum-forming process on our group website. The sculptures were vacuum-formed with acrylic sheet. The resulting shell-form is what we used for our experiment.
After placing the mushrooms spores, some dead plant matter and used coffee grounds into our sculptures, we then covered up the bottoms with an acrylic sheet and sealed it shut. We then waited a couple weeks for any growth from the spores. Soon I saw that the originally brown mixture of nutrients was being consumed as the white mycelia of the spores began to grow.
And then soon after...
A few mushrooms grew through the holes in the acrylic. Going through their full life cycles, they eventually began releasing new spores (the white "powder" under the mushroom).