Natural materials that have evolved in plants and animals often display spectacular mechanical and optical properties. For example, spider silk is as strong as steel and tougher than Kevlar, which is used in bullet-proof vests. Inspired by nature, chemists are now synthesizing materials that mimic the structures and properties of shells, bones, muscle, leaves, feathers, and other natural materials. In this talk, I will discuss our recent discovery of a new type of coloured glass that is a mimic of beetle shells. [emphasis mine] These new materials have intriguing optical properties that arise from their twisted internal structure, and they may be useful for emerging applications..
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At the talk, MacLachlan mentioned that his new structurally iridescent material received great interest from the architectural community but since producing it was a painstaking process for a minute quantity, it would not be suitable as a building material.
A few years later I stumbled across some work at Cornell University where material scientists and Korean artist Kimsooja were working on what looks like an iridescent art/science piece, from a September 15, 2014 posting,
For her newest work, Korean artist Kimsooja wanted to explore a “shape and perspective that reveals the invisible as visible, physical as immaterial, and vice versa.” As artist-in-residence for the Cornell Council for the Arts’ (CCA) 2014 Biennial, she has realized that objective with “A Needle Woman: Galaxy was a Memory, Earth is a Souvenir,” to be installed on the Arts Quad next week [Sept. 15 – 19, 2014]. It will be one of several installations on campus for the semester-long biennial, “Intimate Cosmologies: The Aesthetics of Scale in an Age of Nanotechnology,” beginning Sept. 18 [2014] with a talk by Kimsooja.
Here’s how ‘Needle Woman’ looked after fabrication,
Jaeho Chong Pieces of Kimsooja’s “Needle Woman” artwork during fabrication in Shanghai show the polymer film developed by Cornell researchers
Creating materials that change color based on viewing angle represents a significant challenge at the intersection of art and science. Natural examples of this phenomenon, called iridescence, appear in butterfly wings, peacock feathers, and opals. Unlike traditional pigments that absorb specific wavelengths of light, these natural materials use microscopic structures to split light into different colors. This “structural color” approach creates pure, vibrant hues that don’t fade over time and require no potentially toxic pigments.
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A collaboration between Cornell University materials scientists and Korean-American artist Kimsooja has now yielded a practical solution to this challenge. The team developed a method for creating large-scale, durable iridescent coatings, demonstrated through a 46-foot-tall architectural installation titled A Needle Woman: Galaxy was a Memory, Earth is a Souvenir. Initially exhibited at Cornell under the auspices of the Cornell Council for the Arts, the installation now stands as part of the permanent collection at Yorkshire Sculpture Park in Wakefield, UK, where it has maintained its striking optical properties for over a decade.
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The breakthrough relies on custom-designed plastic molecules that automatically arrange themselves into regular patterns. These molecules consist of two different types of plastic chemically bonded together – polystyrene and poly(tert-butyl methacrylate). When properly designed, thousands of these dual-component molecules spontaneously stack into alternating layers, creating a natural grating that splits light into different colors.
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The key innovation came in synthesizing these molecules at unprecedented sizes – about 1000 times longer than typical plastic molecules. At this scale, the self-assembled layers naturally form patterns around 300-400 nanometers in spacing, large enough to interact with visible light. The researchers then developed a precise coating method to apply these materials while maintaining their self-organized structure.
The scale-up process presented numerous challenges. Each production batch yielded only about 35-40 grams of usable material, with half the attempts failing due to the extreme sensitivity to air and water during synthesis. The installation required roughly 500 grams of material to coat all panels. The team developed a custom two-liter reactor equipped with specialized mixing equipment to increase production scale while maintaining precise control over reaction conditions.
Color consistency posed another challenge. Different batches of the polymer produced slightly different colors due to variations in molecular size. The researchers developed two solutions: blending multiple batches to achieve consistent colors and adding precise amounts of shorter polymer chains to fine-tune the optical properties.
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The team also solved the challenge of applying these coatings to curved surfaces through a specialized lamination technique. They first created the color-shifting layer on flat, flexible plastic sheets, then sandwiched it between protective layers before carefully adhering it to curved acrylic panels. This approach preserved the optical properties while protecting the coating from environmental damage.
Molecules to Masterpieces: Bridging Materials Science and the Arts by Ferdinand F. E. Kohle, Hiroaki Sai, William R. T. Tait, Peter A. Beaucage, Ethan M. Susca, R. Paxton Thedford, Ulrich B. Wiesner. Advanced Materials DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/adma.202413939. First published online: 05 December 2024
The 2014 Cornell [University located in New York State, US] Council for the Arts (CCA) Biennial, “Intimate Cosmologies: The Aesthetics of Scale in an Age of Nanotechnology” was announced in a Dec. 5, 2013 news item on Nanowerk,
A campuswide exhibition next fall will explore the cultural and human consequences of seeing the world at the micro and macro levels, through nanoscience and networked communications.
From Sept. 15 to Dec. 22, the 2014 Cornell Council for the Arts (CCA) Biennial, “Intimate Cosmologies: The Aesthetics of Scale in an Age of Nanotechnology”, will feature several events and principal projects by faculty and student investigators and guest artists – artist-in-residence kimsooja, Trevor Paglen and Rafael Lozano-Hemmer – working in collaboration with Cornell scientists and researchers.
The Dec.5, 2013 Cornell University news release written by Daniel Aloi, which originated the news item, describes the plans for and events leading to the biennale in Fall 2014,
The inaugural biennial theme was chosen to frame dynamic changes in 21st-century culture and art practice, and in nanoscale technology. The multidisciplinary initiative intends to engage students, faculty and the community in demonstrations of how radical shifts in scale have become commonplace, and how artists address realms of human experience lying beyond immediate sensory perception.
“Participating in the biennial is very exciting. We’re engaging the idea of nano and investigating scale as part of the value of art in performance,” said Beth Milles ’88, associate professor in the Department of Performing and Media Arts, who is collaborating on a project with students and with artist Lynn Tomlinson ’88.
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A series of events and curricula this fall and spring are preceding the main Biennial exhibition. Joe Davis and Nathaniel Stern ’99 presented talks this semester, and CCA will bring Paul Thomas, Stephanie Rothenberg, Ana Viseu and others to campus in the coming months.
kimsooja, an acclaimed multimedia artist in performance, video and installation, addresses issues of the displaced self and recently represented Korea in the 55th Venice Biennale. She visited the campus Nov. 22-23 to meet with Uli Weisner and students from his research group, who will work with her to realize her large-scale installation here next fall.
Lozano-Hemmer has worked on both ends of the scale spectrum, from laser-etched poetry on human hairs to an interactive light sculpture over Mexico City, Toronto and Yamaguchi, Japan. Paglen’s researched-based work blurs lines between science, contemporary art, journalism and other disciplines.
The Biennial focus brings together artists and scientists who share a common curiosity regarding the position of the individual within the larger world, CCA Director Stephanie Owens said.
“Scientists are suddenly designers creating new forms,” she said. “And artists are increasingly interested in how things are structured, down to the biological level. Both are designing and discovering new ways of synthesizing natural properties of the material world with the fabricated experiences that extend and express the impact of these properties on our lives.”
Here’s a sample of the work that will be featured at the Biennale,
A prototype image of architecture professor Jenny Sabin’s “eSkin” CCA Biennial project, an interactive simulation of a building façade that behaves like a living organism. Credit: Jenny Sabin Courtesy: Cornell University
Aloi includes a description of some of the exhibits and shows to be featured,
The principal projects to be presented are:
“eSkin” – Architecture professor Jenny Sabin addresses ecology and sustainability issues with buildings that behave like organisms. Her project is an interactive simulation of a façade material incorporating nano- and microscale substrates plated with human cells.
“Nano Performance: In 13 Boxes” – Performing and media arts professor Beth Milles ‘88, animator/visual artist Lynn Tomlinson ‘88 and students from different majors will collaborate on 13 media installations and live performances situated across campus. Computer mapping and clues linking the project’s components will assist in “synthesizing the 13 events as a whole experience – it has a lot to do with discovering the performance,” Mills said.
“Nano Where: Gas In, Light Out” – Juan Hinestroza, fiber science, and So-Yeon Yoon, design and environmental analysis, will demonstrate the potential of molecular-level metal-organic frameworks as wearable sensors to detect methane and poisonous gases, using a sealed gas chamber and 3-D visual art.
“Paperscapes” – Three architecture students – teaching associate Caio Barboza ’13; Joseph Kennedy ’15 and Sonny Xu ’13 – will render the microscopic textures of a sheet of paper as a 3-D inhabitable landscape.
“When Art Exceeds Perception” – Ph.D. student in applied physics Robert Hovden will explore replication and plagiarism in nanoscale reproductions, 1,000 times smaller than the naked eye can see, of famous works of art inscribed onto a silicon crystal.
The Cornell Council for the Arts (CCA) has more information about their 2014 ‘nano Biennale’ here. This looks very exciting and I wish I could be there.
One final note, I’ve used the Biennale rather than Biennial as I associate Biennial and the US with the dates of 1776 and 1976 when the country celebrated its 200th anniversary.
