How to make art out of the lightest material known to man

Imagine a ghostly replica of our world: a planet made only of sand, illuminated by a different star, surrounded by an unknown dreamy atmosphere that is different to anything you have seen before. It is a place where it is hard to pin anything down, where you can no longer describe physical form with adjectives such as hard, soft, wet, dry, cold or hot.

This is what I see when I look at silica aerogel, the main substance in my first project as artist in residence at the department of physics and astronomy at the University of St Andrews. Known as “frozen smoke” because of its cloudy appearance, it is nevertheless almost as transparent as clean air. It scatters light in such a way that it looks bluish against a black background, yet yellowish against a white background. There is something strangely sensual about its appearance. Needless to say, it has wonderful artistic potential.

In spite of its name, silica aerogel is actually a solid synthetic material that is 99.98% air and sand. The lightest solid known to man, it is an excellent insulator. It is also incredibly strong, despite being quite brittle at the same time. NASA uses it to collect particles from comet tails and as an insulator for the sensitive electronics of the Mars Rover. It also has huge potential for various areas being investigated by the synthetic optics group at St Andrews, including transmitting information with light; cloaking, sensing and imaging. The group’s research work was the inspiration for my project.

Sand on Sand: silica aerogel against natural rock. Nedyalka Panova

As artist in residence, I first had to learn how to make silica aerogel, then observe it in different lighting conditions and record how it changes over time. It starts as a gel, which then has to be hardened through a drying process. This solid is extremely delicate to the touch – as fragile and temporary as a moment of happiness.

I decided to let plants and seeds grow inside the silica matrix of the aerogel as a metaphor for how light spreads through matter. The picture below shows seeds in the gel form of the aerogel in water; while the lead image at the top of the page shows plants growing in the solid aerogel under UV light.

Seeds in the Air. Nedyalka Panova

To explore the boundary between organic and inorganic matter, I then experimented with various inorganic substances. When I inserted found metal shavings and rocks, they split the aerogel dramatically (see below).

Material Stress: inserting rocks into aerogel. Nedyalka Panova

I also introduced cadmium telluride (CdTe) in the form of a solution of tiny particles known as “quantum dots”, which is more commonly used to make photovoltaic solar cells. This created particle clusters inside the structure while also randomly entering the pores of the aerogel, which have fluorescent properties under UV light.

Broken Nebula: aerogel with CdTe quantum dots.

The final pieces in my project were exhibited at more than ten venues during the International Year of Light 2015 in the UK and Ireland, including the opening ceremony at the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

The new dalliance

While artists and scientists are usually seen as very different, residencies such as mine are becoming increasingly common. They are seen as a good way of bridging the gap between art/humanities and science/technology. By introducing artists to scientific research topics and facilities, it offers up new materials for them to work with.

For the scientists, it is increasingly seen as a way of bringing a fresh perspective and allowing original ideas to flow. This aims to stimulate them to follow novel lines of interdisciplinary research. In my project, for instance, we had to collaborate with the chemistry department to produce the larger pieces of aerogel – useful knowledge which will help the synthetic optics group with their future research. I also used my ceramics skills to contribute to the scientific process of shaping the aerogel in more complex ways; while my idea of combining organic materials with the substance showed a direction which might benefit the research group in future work related to biomedicine.

Various other leading universities, museums and research centres have also been experimenting with artists in residence in relation to science. This has produced an exhibition from MIT Media Lab in the US about how the human genome unfolds, for example (see video below). Output from France’s Atelier Arts-Sciences Theatre Hexagon has included a human beatbox performance augmented by an electronic glove; while a collaboration at CERN in Switzerland produced an electronic-music track entitled Superstructure.

Other institutions that have pioneered similar projects have included Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, Le Laboratoire: StudioLab in Paris and Cambridge, Massachussetts; and University College Cork in Ireland. Numerous galleries and journals regularly make space for these endeavours, while courses are beginning to emerge: Central St Martins in London, where I obtained my degrees, launched an MA in Art and Science at Central five years ago, for example.

Now I am working on a new art/science collaboration at University of St Andrews, this time with the organic semiconductor centre. It will involve the organic solar materials that the centre is currently investigating for organic solar cells, li-fi and sensor detectors for explosive substances. It will complete in the autumn, so watch this space for future exhibitions.

Nedyalka Panova's current project has funding from the EPSRC Impact Accelerator Account.

Nedyalka Panova, Artist in Residence, University of St Andrews

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.