Dr. Victoria Vesna (media artist), Dr. James Gimzewski (nano scientist), Josh Nimoy (Programmer, Designer)
"Premiere demonstration of the project at
the Biennial of
Electronic Arts in Perth, Australia,
August, 2002."
Title of presentation:
Zero@Wavefunction:
nano dreams & nightmares
Description of Project:
"Zero@wavefunction" is a collaborative project by James Gimzewski, a nanoscientist and Victoria
Vesna, a media artist. Both are professors at UCLA, home to the recently
formed California Nano Systems Institute (CNSI). They first started their
dialogue during a conference entitled 'from Networks to Nanosystems' in
November 2001. Soon thereafter, Gimzewski opened his lab to Victoria Vesna
and together they initiated a number of projects whose goal is to make
nanoscience more accessible and understandable to the broader public.
At the same time they are interested engaging the audience in probing
larger philosophical questions about the impact of this emerging science
on the culture at large. For the past year they have worked together on
developing projects such as: the official CNSI web site; a streaming video
project, "Windows to Nanotechnology" and a major installation,
"Zero@Wavefunction" that premiered at the Biennial of Electronic Arts in Perth, Australia, August, 2002. There is no lead person in this collaboration - it is a true back
and forth exchange of wavefunction energy. There is no contract - it is
a collaboration based on their true interest in each other's worlds.
Nanotechnology is a brave new world and within it there are dangers and immense opportunities to change not only world economy, but the entire structure of society and the environment of the planet. It has no clearly articulated vision or direction and is generally not understood but greeted by wonderment, curiosity, fear and distrust by the public.
Project Background:
Albert Einstein's greatest contribution to humanity
is the discovery that matter and energy are inter-convertible. Matter
appears, changes and disappears. Nothing is solid, not even a rock. The
atoms and electrons in a rock are subtle and alive just as the ocean is.
These particles are described in quantum mechanics by a complex function
known as a wavefunction. These wavefunctions are basically connected and when two come close,
they are both changed. In fact they have a probability to create nothing:
zero. Zero@wavefunction installation and interactivity is based on the way a nanoscientist manipulates an individual
molecule (billions of times smaller than common human experience) projected
on a monumental scale. When a person passes by, they cast a larger than
life shadow on the molecule and activate a series of visualizations, sounds
and texts. The visualizations are of buckyballs that respond via sensors
to the movement of the person's shadow and the possibility of manipulating
the molecule emerges. As one pushes the shape, it activates sounds that
are derived from molecular measurements and texts that are from a database
consisting of quotes from the writings of Gimzewski, Vesna, newspaper
headlines, academic papers, corporate sales and science fiction novels.
At a certain point, a cosmic ray burst interrupts the interaction and
the project returns to neutral.
Website Address for Documentation Materials:
http://notime.arts.ucla.edu/zerowave
Victoria Vesna is an artist, professor and chair of the Department of Design | Media Arts at the UCLA School of the Arts Her work can be defined as experimental research that resides in between disciplines and technologies. She explores how communication technologies effect collective behavior and how perceptions of identity shift in relation to scientific innovation. Currently she is co-director with Katherine Hayles and James Gimzewski of SINAPSE, a center that promotes transdisciplinary dialogue and collaboration at UCLA. Her most recent commissioned project, "notime (Building a Community of People with No Time)" http://notime.arts.ucla.edu is part of an ongoing traveling exhibit, 'telematic connections: the virtual embrace'. Other recent works are Bodies INCorporated http://www.bodiesinc.ucla.edu/, a large networked collaborative project and Datamining Bodies http://notime.arts.ucla.edu/mining.
Victoria has exhibited her work in 16 solo exhibitions,
over 70 group shows, published 20 papers and gave over 100 invited talks
in the last ten years. She is recepient of many grants, commissions and
awards, including the Oscar Signorini award for best net artwork in 1998
and the Cine Golden Eagle for best scientific documentary in 1986. Vesna's
work has received notice in publications such as Art in America, the Los
Angeles Times, as well as Spiegel (Germany), The Irish Times (Ireland),
Tema Celeste (Italy), and Veredas (Brazil).
E-mail address: vv@ucla.edu
Address: UCLA, Department of Design | Media Arts, 1300 Dickson
Art Center, Los Angeles, CA 90095
Website address: http://vv.arts.ucla.edu
Dr. James Gimzewski is a world leading expert in Nanotechnology and a Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at UCLA and the Californian Nanosystems Institute. He is an author of over 200 scientific publications, has given over 300 invited talks on nanoscale science and holds numerous patents. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Physics http://www.nano.org.uk and the Royal Academy of Engineering, holds 7 IBM awards and was co-director of 2 NATO ASI workshops and 1 EPS Industrial Workshop on Nanotechnology. He is a member of the board and a founder of the Institute of Nanotechnology in the UK http://www.nano.org.uk. Currently he serves on the Board of Editorial Reviewers http://www.aaas.org/science/BOARD_OF.HTM of the journal Science http://www.sciencemag.org/
He pioneered research on single atom contacts
and molecules using scanning tunneling microscopy. He was the first to
fabricate molecular suprastructures 'by hand', at room temperature. He
is in the Guiness Book of World records for the worlds smallest calculator,
constructed from buckyballs and operated manual interaction.
In 1997 he was awarded the Discover Award for Emerging Fields in Nanotechnology
and the Feynman Prize for Nanotechnology (Experimental). http://www.foresight.org/FI/1997Feynman.html In 1998, Gimzewski was named one of the "Wired 25" by Wired magazine for
his work on molecular wheels. In 2001, he was awarded the Institute of
Physics 2001 Award Duddell Medal and Prize. http://physics.iop.org/IOP/Awards/duddell.html
Email address: gim@chem.ucla.edu
Address: UCLA, PicoLab, Room B-112, University of California, Los
Angeles, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, 607 Charles E. Young
Dr. East, Los Angeles, CA 90095
Website address: http://www.chem.ucla.edu/dept/Faculty/gimzewski/
Josh Nimoy is a software artist and
designer whose work explores digital interactive media as a new formal aesthetic
to be considered as a conceptually and experientially driven design process, and not simply technology making. He reinvents
paradigms of common graphical user interfaces into a playful language of personal expression, and experiments with combining
traditional design ideologies with common and historical uses of graphical
visualization, simulation, and other notoriously under-designed computational systems. 'Textension,' one of Josh's playful typographic works, exhibits in Europe and the States (most recently ArtFutura 2002), and shown in new media schools. In close collaboration with media artist Victoria Vesna, Nimoy
has recently designed and programmed the software art pieces that
are being internationally exhibited as components in Vesna's
collaboratives.
Josh was a visiting undergraduate researcher at the MIT Media
lab in 1999 and holds a BFA, from the department of Design | Media Arts at the School of the Arts, UCLA. He is currently a
graduate student at New York University's Interactive
Telecommunications
Program, expecting to receive his Masters in Professional Studies in 2004. At his community's request, Nimoy has dedicated time
to teaching both students and faculty at UCLA since 1998.
Additional Information about Josh Nimoy:
http://www.jtnimoy.com
http://itp.jtnimoy.com
Additional collaborators:
Josh Nimoy: Programmer, designer. e-mail: jtnimoy@ucla.edu
David Votava: Architect. e-mail: drv_design@yahoo.com
Joel Schoenbrunn: Video streaming, audio.
e-mail:
JoelSchonbrunn@arc.ucla.edu
Andrew Pelling: Graduate student in nanoscience.
e-mail: apelling@chem.ucla.edu
