NanoArt doesnt promote Nanoscience

It seems NanoArt is how science meets art. Further it is 'a new Renaissance and the most innovative way to promote an understanding of nanotechnology.'

So what is NanoArt? Here is a sample.

The above piece is called “In Pieces” by the NanoArtist Cris Orfescu and it is one of his favorites. It is created by freezing a droplet of suspended graphite nanoparticles in Liquid Nitrogen at 196 degrees Celsius below zero. Scanning Electron Microscope is used to take the picture, which was further painted and manipulated digitally using a computer. The final image was printed on canvas with special inks to last for a long time.

So far so fine.

Cris Orfescu explains further that NanoArt is

[...] a new art discipline at the art-science-technology intersections. It features nanolandscapes (molecular and atomic landscapes which are natural structures of matter at molecular and atomic scales) and nanosculptures (structures created by scientists and artists by manipulating matter at molecular and atomic scales using chemical and physical processes). These structures are visualized with powerful research tools like scanning electron microscopes and atomic force microscopes and their scientific images are captured and further processed by using different artistic techniques to convert them into artworks showcased for large audiences.

This is also fine, although I am not sure why sophisticated instruments costing millions of dollars are to be invested in doing this. OK, artistic freedom and right to express one's creative impulses and so on. Agreed.

Then he goes on to say this

[...] Artists should familiarize the general public with the nanouniverse, so people will focus on the positive effects and redirect the negative ones to benefit from them.

[...] Scientists are exploring the nanoworld hoping to find a better future and there is evidence that Nanotechnology might be the answer. At this time, an estimated 70 percent of the American public and a lot higher percentage of the international public are not aware of nanotechnology, although we are using nanotech products on a daily basis.

[...] NanoArt plays an important role here in educating the general public with attractive and interesting images to help a better understanding of the nanoworld. Artists and scientists should intensify their efforts to raise the awareness of the public at large.

This is where I wince. I am not convinced.

What 'positive effects' he is talking about? What negative effects the public should be re-directed from? All in a nanouniverse. Let art be expression of creativity and NanoArt be one form of it. But claiming such an art is necessary to educate the public about nanotechnology or nanoscience or nanouniverse or nanoworld is unsubstantiated.

I appreciate Cris's art work. But I am not convinced public's perception about nanotechnology could be improved by appreciating and getting to know about NanoArt.

An immediate example is Fractals. Pretty pictures. How many of us who have appreciated those pretty pictures have gone further to learn the science behind them? Check out the Mandelbulb for instance and the math behind it for a start.

Generating nice fractal images using computer programs is one thing; using such images as art in a gallery and hoping the viewing public would go home and get educated about complex numbers, higher math, programming, differential geometry and so on - actual math and science required to understand fractals as a scientific concept - is far fetched.

Drawing miniatures on rice grains and displaying it to the public doesn't maker them ask questions about the quality of rice, whether it is genetically modified, world human starvation index and so on. Public simply appreciate the rice-art and perhaps go on to wonder how it is made. The technique.

In NanoArt, there is a technique that public may get interested in. But as we can see the technique is not simple - manipulating matter at molecular and atomic scales using chemical and physical processes and capturing them with scanning electron microscopes is not an easy task. I doubt members of the public would want to go through years of college, learn all the nanotechnology techniques with sophisticated instruments, only to generate computer modified patterns of modern-art.

That is a world where we study theoretical physics only to get a job as a video game programmer.

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