A digital poetry of gold nanoparticles

Priorities in both primary/secondary and higher education stress the importance of STEM – science, technology, engineering, and math. However, there are important parallels and connections between art and science and a growing number of advocates believe that STEM education could benefit greatly from inclusion of the Arts. According to Scientifica America, Nobel laureates in the sciences are seventeen times more likely than the average scientist to be painters, twelve times as likely to be poets, and four times as likely to be musicians. This clearly illustrates the connection between creativity and scientific discovery.

Steep is an international art/science research project aimed at exploring this link between artistic creativity and scientific research, specifically by examining the impact of gold and gold nanoparticles. The first installment in this project involves the creation of literary art – poetry specifically – fused to scientific measurements of gold nanoparticles in environmental and biological systems. This initial effort is a global effort and has resulted from the culmination of many diverse skill sets.

The writer/science communicator/poet for this project is Maryse de la Giroday. She is also the publisher and writer of Canada's largest, independent science blog. De la Giroday writes about nanotechnology and science policy and communication, society, and the arts from a Canadian perspective.

Raewyn Turner is the visual artist/conceptual lead/videographer for the Steep project. Living in New Zealand, Turner combines olfactory research and art aesthetic skills – her interdisciplinary work is concerned with cross-sensory perception and the uncharted territories of the senses.

Professor Mark Wiesner, CEINT's director and lead scholar in the field of nano science (who is also an accomplished bassist) served as a scientific advisor to de la Giroday and Turner on their work.

A digital poetry of gold nano particles artistically explores sensing gold nanotechnology, where it accumulates, changes over time, and how it may affect living beings and the environment.

 

Steep#1 by Raewyn Turner & Maryse de la Giroday from raewyn turner on Vimeo.