Zero@wavefunction is a collaborative project that manifests in several forms: installation projections, typographic art, and live streaming webcams installed in a nanotech lab in UCLA. The installations (illustrated above) are interactive video projections of individual molecules called buckeyballs (name in honor of Buckminster Fuller, the designer and environmentalist who designed and advocated domed domiciles) floating around a screen that can be manipulated by casting shadows onto the screen.  Motion sensors detect the movement, and so the buckeyballs respond. The imagery is meant to represent the relationship between scientist and the molecule. The typographic art consists of words typically associated with nanotech, found in newspapers and publications. Some include Haikus, and are meant to demonstrate how little people really know about this science. The webcams allow viewers to enter the world of a nanotechnology lab, to quite literally invite people into the science sphere.

Victoria Vesna is a new media artist, professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, and former co-director of the Design | Media Arts department in the School of the Arts. James Gimzewski is a nanoscientist, and professor at UCLA. The two are working on interdisciplinary research, combining art and science to create work that makes nanoscience more comprehensible to the public. The collaborative team are interested in promoting the development of a more involved relationship between science and art.

More information about the work available on Vesna’s Project Site: http://victoriavesna.com/index.php?p=projects&item=9

UCLA Art|Sci Center: http://artsci.ucla.edu/?q=about