Technology porn!

It looks remarkably like a bone, but isn't.

The more deeply scientific my work becomes in the Ossificatorium project, the more ABSTRACT it becomes. This is counter to what we might believe about science - we see science as "cold, hard fact" and as evidence-based. In fact, it is often very much the opposite: it is thoroughly esoteric half the time if you dig deeply enough into it. This might disrupt our notions of science as 'credible'.

During a recent studio visit with my peers (who came to my studio/lab), I explained to them the relevance of digital information and the use of crystals in my current project. I referenced my training in LASER safety and in understanding the mechanics of how lasers work (LASER is an acronym, which is why I have it capitalized: Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation). What does LASER really mean? It means that crystals are used in the laser machinery to amplify a certain frequency of light particles (ultraviolet, infrared, etc). Photons (light particles) are made to bump up against other atoms and change the frequency level of their electrons (meaning their orbit around the nucleus of the atom), so that the electrons move, and in the process emit more photons (when electrons change frequency they naturally emit more light). Those photons are focused to create a laser beam. Lasers are the light created through the manipulation of energy via crystals (like sapphires, rubies, tourmalines and emeralds). Believe it or not, this is actually very much related to 'energy work' done by 'healers' with crystals on the body - they are simply operating within a different framework, utilizing a more intuitive versus scientific process. Somehow, we see this kind of work as infinitely less legitimate, when there is actually a scientific basis for it. But that is very new. I'll come back to healers in a moment.

In giving a research presentation to an audience that included members of the scientific community, I was engaged in an interesting discussion about the differences (and similarities) between scientific process and artistic process. As a creative researcher balancing on the edge between the two realms, this is a pertinent part of the discourse around the work that I'm doing. IN fact, the work that I'm doing is very much hovering right over that edge between what's real and what's representational, which is such a complicated position to hold - quite mind-bending, really. The work in the Ossificatorium project is both real and representational at the same time. Science works in the 'real' while art works in the 'representational', traditionally. BioArt fits much more neatly within the scientific category of 'real' than what I'm doing, even. The mock ossified objects I'm creating are all at once real biological processes while also mimicking and representing real biological processes. The difference might be that the osteogenesis I'm performing in my studio/lab is not producing living material, but then again, that depends on your definition of living! My sculptures do 'grow' on their own, according to their material nature.

A key question I ask myself lately is: Can artistic research also be credible scientific research? I'm not a scientist but I have legitimately turned my studio into a Type I biology research lab. I have biohazard training certifications all over the wall. The research I'm doing is both aesthetic as well as scientific, yet I work on a scientifically amateur level (with some very high tech equipment) while functioning as master of aesthetics. My real challenge is, of course, aestheticizing scientific research. While science comes with its own distinct aesthetic, (e.g. lab coats, nitrile gloves, beakers, etc), creating something like visual artworks from the research is a definite challenge. One can easily get lost in producing technology porn. The work needs to be more than that. It needs to actually comment on something, and be beautiful/interesting to look at.

Synchronicities continue to abound in this work for me - this morning I randomly stumbled across a marketing presentation for a Japanese high tech digital microscope manufacturer, Keyence, and so went in to the conference room (in the Engineering wing of my building) to check it out on my way to my studio/lab. The microscopes (priced at around $65,000 each) were truly impressive and I brought in some tissue samples to get some imaging done. The image at the top of the post is my favourite of all the images I was able to capture - it is a piece of dried hog gut. Here are some more of my microscopic images (speaking of technology porn):

dried hog gut, a smaller section

cat skull bone

a strand of wet hog gut lit from top and backlit (comparison image)

Sorry, but I'm keeping these images really small for dissemination on the Internet for now, until I figure out exactly how I want to use them in my work. The hog gut tissue, in the first image, really and truly resembles fabric where it is torn, which is so interesting. Our flesh is structured from fibres that form a fabric mesh around and throughout us. The strand of hog gut that is magnified and shows top and back lighting is about twice as thick as a human hair when not magnified. I was searching for neurons but I didn't find any, leading me to believe that pig intestine must not be as intelligent as human intestine. What is really synchronous about this event is that I had just finished printing some large format photographs that I'd constructed as 'fake' microscopic images from the macro shots of my pieces that I've taken. Somehow I drew the real thing to myself through this act of pretending.

Reza informed me that he would come back to meet with me privately and do some more imaging for me, that this would be good advertising for him. Win-win! I asked him if he's worked with artists before and he said no. However, he did show me a specimen he carries with him from a project he's done for archaeologists: a single human tooth from an archaeological dig, very old, that had completely crystallized into a beautiful, transparent crystal. A human tooth as a single crystal! It was one of the most beautiful objects I'd ever seen. I wish I had a photo of it but perhaps he will let me take one the next time I see him. Thank you, Reza! Now imagine the entire skeleton as a crystal.

Back to healers. I must share that when I do further cell culture growth, I will be collaborating with a hypnotherapist/energy healer in growing the cell cultures. He will not be in Australia with me (should the research take place at SymbioticA) but will be collaborating distantly, sending energy from Montreal to the cell cultures, to see what effect this might have on their growth. This begins to get into quantum physics, of which I am a big believer. Our experiments will be enlightening, no doubt. I will have a control group of cell cultures that do not receive the 'psychic' energy and one group that does. I'll keep you posted on that collaboration once it begins to unfold. This collaborator, Jack Cain, is a certified hypnotherapist and a member of the Association of Registered Clinical Hypnotists, as well as a multi-linguist, professional translator and information management consultant. He is the perfect collaborator for my project, which uses haptic intelligence and energetic communication systems of the body at the cellular level as its framework.

RESOURCE: www.keyence.ca