My friend (left) and me (right) at the LASER talk |
For my third event, I attended the LASER talk hosted by Prof.
Vesna on May 9th. This talk featured four speakers: Rebecca Raffaeta, Maru
Garcia, Kelly Nipper, and Ariel Levi Simons. Rebecca focused on culture and
health interactions, as well as our interactions with nature. Maru focused her
artwork created using chemical compounds and scientific practices/innovations.
Kelly described her work in photography (and its technicalities), and her work
with dancers to convey geometric ideas. Ariel talked about his research into
light pollution and its effects on different ecosystems (besides our own). Lastly,
Prof. John Hood talked about David Bermat Collection and David’s passion for
art. I found Maru's artwork and Ariels' technical work fascinating and will be
focusing on those in this blog.
Maru was an undergraduate student in chemistry and was working on
characterizing compounds in plant membranes when she noticed the beautiful
images created during her analysis. Some of the work that Maru presented reminds
me of a lot of the artwork related to nanotechnology field.
Image of a molecule created by Maru Garcia |
Maru went on to work in the pharmaceutical industry after her
undergrad, but always wanted to integrate her work in the science field with
art. To pursue this, she decided to collaborate with a microbiologist from
Mexico. Her petri dish art was the product of this collaboration. In the image
below the yellow bacteria is the bacteria that grows around corn, a staple of
Mexican diet. Through this work, Maru combined her passion for art and science
while reaching back to her roots. She mentioned that she has Mexican roots, and
it was very important for her to express her heritage through her work. She is
obviously a trained Chemist and has been trained to conduct experiments etc. Through
her experiments, she has created works of art to share the beauty of science
with everyone.
Petri Dish by Maru Garcia |
My favorite work by Maru were the chromatography landscapes. These
landscapes were created using a molecule/compound separation method known as
chromatography. This method is commonly used by pharmaceutical companies during
research and development phases of their drugs (Keller). Her chromatography
art is absolutely beautiful and looks like an abstract watercolor landscape. This
once again proves Vesna’s point that science and art are closely linked (Vesna). Maru truly showed
us that scientists can be artists, and that scientific methods can produce
objectively beautiful art.
My favorite piece by Maru Garcia: the chromatography landscape |
While Maru showcased the intersection of art and science, Ariel
showed us the more technical side. Ariel’s research focuses on light pollution
and its effect of ecosystems. He mentioned that with the advent of
industrialization, light pollution has become an omnipresent issue. At the
beginning, only the astronomers were concerned about light pollution because
they could not see the stars through their telescopes. Now that light pollution
has gotten out of hand, biologists are starting to care because it affects
sleep cycles and navigation abilities of animals. Due to these concerns, VIIRS project
was started. VIIRS is a satellite whose purpose is to map out long term lumination (NOAA). Ariel’s research project
is essentially measure the light pollution on the ground and to compare the
data to VIIRS. His research is vital, because VIIRS does not take into account
the reflected and refracted light. While Ariel’s presentation was very technical,
it showed that science creates beautiful art without trying (as shown by the
data from VIIRS below).
Light pollution data showed by Ariel Simons |
Bibliography
Keller, Roy A. Chromatography. 17 November
2016. Web. 5 June 2018. https://www.britannica.com/science/chromatography.
NOAA. Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite
(VIIRS). 29 December 2017. Web. 5 June 2018.
https://ncc.nesdis.noaa.gov/VIIRS/.
Vesna, Victoria. "Lecture 1: Two
Cultures." Los Angeles: uconline, April 2018. Web.
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