AFMsoundscratch

one of the early ideas I had in this project was inspired by an AFM practical - the process and the idea of playing the surfaces (the materials resemblance to the surface of the groves in a record was the obvious starting point, that and a 'giant' needle). today I was looking at the surface of plastic - thinking about reflective surfaces - noticed the shadows - the scratches - started making marks - which turned into circles - which then found itself on a record player - which were then played - recorded - and slightly played through effects - an hour later and we have made sound - next stage to think about matching it to videos and possibly thinking about more marks and the physicality of sound. that the act of defining measurement is determined by the speed of sound - there is something here about space.

purgingtheatmosphere

graphene growth and transfer - the clean room really is a space of possibilities - a place for the performance of science - its all about the surface - creating new ones and using old ones with extraordinary properties - slippage - nonstickness - stretchiness - tension - relaxing metals at high temperatures - inert gas as spacer - the slippage of words, the idea that atoms have choice of where to go and always framing the science into the 'real' world. enjoying watching the craft of nanoscience, it's hands-on-ness. thinking about the scale of the graphs when monitoring and presenting evidence and how it can alter perception.

optimisingspace

Friday's practical - gas absorption - appeared to involve very expensive equipment that was very fragile. Apart from the obvious (the ability through building metal-organic frameworks to calculate the surface area of solid matter at a very small level) my lack of ability to engage in what was happening within the technical and expensive grey boxes meant that I started to almost start to observe from another part of my brain - I watched the demonstrator 'explain' some of the overarching concepts, processes and outcomes with hand gestures - I became mesmerised by this and an idea started to manifest itself - a thought .... would it be possible to use the hand gestures that explain scientific theories as a way or system to manipulate or handle the objects I am going to make?

This would enable me to explore the relationship between a thought, a gesture and the tools used for thinking.

The rigorous nature of optimisation is compelling - the complex relationship between the optimised moment and the notion of the beautiful and perfect - the unsaid notions of beauty and perfection - what makes something perfect? - Is there an excel spreadsheet somewhere containing the formula's that I can use to calculate this? like the use of BET isotherm to determine the surface area of a solid?

working within stability - the spaces that are created to work in have super restrictions. The limitations are important to enable the focus to be on material not on the space - this space is often noisy and needs to be made to seem quieter.

the specific methodologies around particular science activities at this level appears to be highly complex - just the idea of how the stages in the process were developed - from the mixing of a particular metal and linker to the machinery created to monitor seems both incredibly focused and random (I understand that this latter feeling is due to my lack of knowledge). the number of options seem limitless and possibilities are afforded by  the level of knowledge of material properties - this is the key.

and afterwards.....

searching for the right answer which appears to be found within balance - the creation of beautiful arcs from the data by focused reduction and data manipulating/handling.

and then again words and their meanings became filtered - my lack of understanding meant that their meanings were translated, changed enabling a reread/rethought. 

chemicallogicofthemicrobialcommunity

todays practical was confocal microscopy - looking at the microbial community - the dynamics of species and their interrelationships - wow - my notes boil down to the idea of chemical logic - there is a knowledge that a material has a functionality that at some level is understood - this functionality is used or exploited to explore the characteristics of that material or another material at a deeper (smaller) level - knowledge is used to make more knowledge, a form of leverage. I was struck by the mechanical nature of nature of the natural world.

seen under the microscope the images were really physical, realisable in the mind as what Science looks like - this was supported initially when creating the sample to observe by the use of glass wear, filters and the pipette. I spent a lot of the time in my mind translating the conversation into my world of cameras, focal length and aperture. The idea of digital and optical focus, weighing up the various tools to decide how to observe and measure - size versus detail. When using the 3D software to almost freeze the material in time it was like diving through space - as ever the idea of the gaps - the spaces in-between became interesting and that at the smallest level it always looks like the largest - space and the universe.  

I came away with the extraordinary idea that one could extrapolate the symbiotic activity of algae and bacteria towards a discussion around and within social science. The behaviour of microbial ecology could be used as models for human systems of activity - government, education, the organisation of any activity simple or complex -  the art of logistics........

pipetpipetpipetpipetpipetpipetpipetpipetpipetpipetpipet

Wednesday's practical......it's a real thing....DNA origami. It is quite possibly the most exciting thing ever! where to start - you build a structure within a software program and then after bringing together the material (DNA, staples, salts etc) mixing, filtering and pipetting (lots of pipetting) - the material appears to 'slot into' or 'follow' the system you have set up because of the inherent functionality or quality of base pairs bonding - I think I might understand self assembly! there is a lot of measuring and cleaning involved and again you don't actually appear to look at the thing - you look at material which informs you of the location of thing. I love this idea of evidence of activity. Onto an idea....... first 'find out' the DNA sequence of a person and then create a structure through DNA folding that in some way represents or symbolises that person - it could be conceived as a form of portraiture.

and 2 lectures with 2 very different approaches to the delivery of information; the most relentlessly brutal informationally intense PowerPoint ever and a whiteboard of equations. 1 - the theory behind AFM -  due to a previous practical I was actually able to grasp what was occurring - surface morphology, issues around calibration, the problems associated with the tip bluntness, decisions around pixel density, the creation of clarity through both the choice of tools with which to examine specimens and image manipulation. 2 - bands and band engineering appeared to be about determining what something (metal, semiconductors and insulators) was dependant on its atomic makeup (there was a lot of maths - I think it was maths). That was about the level of my understanding  but the language used was quite beautiful and as ever when in the room it feels like an experience or world beyond the actual subject or space is being describing. It reminds me of a poetry reading, the language's meaning slips between the liminal boundaries of specific states, not quite metaphor but defiantly transitional .  

I am asked to conceive of something dimensionless

looking for an electron to achieve balance      but         low energy states are filled

balancing always balancing                            but         systems are governed by symmetry

making and filling gaps                                 but         looking for balance  

representing electrons in a solid                       but         suspending is restricted

there are always empty states above full ones   and         insulators restricting jumping      

the electron could be anywhere                       and        everywhere

the wave travelling moving                       and        unimpeded

we are converging on one answer

                                                                              is this possible?

sciencefetish

Fridays practical, solar cell construction, was a demonstration of the repetitive actions involved in the world of science. spin coating.....clean, clean, dry, drop coating, spin, drop coating, spin, drop coating, spin, drop coating, spin... the speed of which determines the curvature..... the hand eye coordination required to undertake these tasks does not appear to be supported by visual clues on any of the apparatus within the process. It really does rely on practice and experience - each action supporting the development of one's knowledge - feeling the way forward towards an understanding - a practice.

Light transfers into power but then light is power. making modelling measuring - more tools to enable chemists working in a physics department thinking like an engineer. There were so many 'distractions' - or maybe they will become the project. The main one  is the paraphernalia that enables the experiment - pipettes, lab coats, gloves, goggles, lint free plastic paper all of which I have encountered before. But arm protectors used in conjunction with the enclosed safe places that are glove boxes were new to me - the fetishisation of all this is something to consider but I am wary of falling into a science version of the archive ‘trap’ written about by Victoria Lane of becoming ‘fascinated with what might seem to the outsider to be the esoteric props of the archivist's trade: the white cotton gloves, the cushion........?’ The Artist in the Archive. All this stuff. Archiving the Artist (2013).

But I was fascinated by the choreography undertaken by users of the glove boxes and thought that it would be exciting to try and use it to manipulate my tools for the imagination, structural bookworks.

Protecting the specimen within the experiment from us rather than us from it is an intriguing idea - these spaces that are created where objects are manipulated. Often within vacuums - contained, clean, dry (a non-space) (yes I realise that it's not 'non') and within this extraordinary space specific materials and situations are monitored - ready to be recreated, controlled to repeat. This repeatable idea butts up neatly with the concept of 'air' being problematic (I love that phrase) and I was reminded of Heraclitus not being able to step into the same river twice 'No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.'  It appears that science is constantly trying to create a time and space where the river is still.

thinkingscience

For myself the learning around the NanoDTC practical's operate in two ways - there is the 'oh now I understand the basics of nanotube growth' it's all about metallic substrates, interacting with gases, various pressures, temperature etc. Then there is the reflective or mirror effect - how the exposure to new ways of thinking informs my own practice. The conversations around the creation of material with qualities defined by a number of factors was informative, each ingredient delivers a number of practical possibilities which has made me think about the opportunity afforded by changing the structural possibilities within a material to effect different stresses and tensions at a 1:1 level. These ideas will in turn enable the objects I make to have certain parameters or physical abilities which I can then utilise. Girish Rughoobur ran the practical and brought his own research into the discussion, this mention of the creation of nanotubes  for sensors was informative - so that's what they're for...... but also Girish explained that their quality/functionality was dependant on the density, size, number of walls, length, speed of growth.........and created within pentagons which with their non parallel sides enable little or no resonance feedback and so are useful/strong .  Other shapes are not appropriate - the triangle has internal angles that are too acute and the circle at some scale has an element of it that is parallel. This information is another huge idea that I'm sure will find itself within new work at some point.

The practical's are also great fun - it's a pleasure to be putting myself in learning situations with such open intelligent interesting people, it's of not knowing. Ideas are firing around my head and connections between seemingly random issues are made. In my teaching capacity I find myself at the front, in theory leading and the expectation is of having answers but for me it's always about trying find opportunities to learn and develop collaborative ways of thinking even with my undergraduate students who have much to teach me.