Nanomicroscopic Image Or Modern Art?

SillyConCarbide writes "Every six months, the Materials Research Society holds a science as art competition. The winners from their most recent meeting are particularly breathtaking. Materials researchers may struggle for years with stubborn instruments, fragile crystals or difficult chemical reactions before obtaining a bit of precious data from the exotic substances they study. Now, the scrutiny of samples not only yields potentially important data, but also artistic inspiration. Polymer films, cerium oxide membranes, and tantalum oxide crystals can look beautiful in the right light — especially if that light is an electron beam."

Comments

Everything is Art

[acomj]

I used to work as a security guard in a modern art museum. I the gallery was a plain looking wooden bench. I got asked, "Can I sit on this bench or is it art.?"

"No its just a bench".

If nobody can tell what art is anymore then is everything art?

This is art, in the way that photography is art.

Re:Everything is Art

[Jugalator]

Some say "art" is "something that took skill to produce an aesthetic result". So thinking of it as that and aesthetics being in the eye of the beholder, I guess it's subjective if something is art or not.

And using that "definition", photography can be called art by the one watching it if he/she think skill was well used for the result, but maybe not otherwise.

Re:Everything is Art

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

I used to work as a security guard in a modern art museum. I the gallery was a plain looking wooden bench. I got asked, "Can I sit on this bench or is it art.?"

"No its just a bench". Little did you know that all benches at modern art museums are the work of one particular anonymous artist. His work is designed to incorporate both regular employees and patrons of each museum.

Re:Everything is Art

[qengho]

If nobody can tell what art is anymore then is everything art? Apparently so, if you work at the Royal Academy of Arts.

Re:Everything is Art

[Paul Slocum]

There is plenty of bad art out there. But there's also the problem that art has become much more complex than it used to be. It takes years of study to really understand a lot of recent work and develop and eye for it, and there are mountains of writing behind all of it. Nobody ever comes along as a novice, glances at advanced math and calls it's a bunch of BS because they don't understand it. But people do that all the time with art.

Its a good thing

[phpmysqldev]

In a world where science is becoming less and less listened to, and most research is conducted by biased corporations for the purpose of supporting a product, anything that gets the public to develop a positive interest in science can't be a bad thing.

Maybe someone will see some of this art and think, wow thats really cool, I wonder why that looks that way. Maybe that will lead people to actually grab a book and learn something.

This is actually pretty neat

[Metasquares]

I was expecting more designed nano-scale guitars, but seeing the article was actually a very pleasant surprise. I wasn't expecting to see sunrises, flowers, or forests come out of those images, even if they were colorized.

Wow!

[gentlemen_loser]

Am I the only one who noticed that one of the images looked EXACTLY like a Honda Accord advert?!? Spooky.

LINK TO FINAL IMAGE

[Alsee]

The page for the last image is broken.
Here is a direct link to view final image.

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Re:Everything is Art (but some art just sucks)

[Vellmont]

That just means that modern art is so meaningless and trite that no one knows what could be included as it.

Well, I take issue with the idea that labeling something as "art" immediately puts in on some pedestal of un-questionablity. If you do question it, it's some kind of reflection on your poor understanding of "art", i.e. "the emperor has no clothes".

In my view, call anything you like "art", but some art just plain sucks monkey dick. I was at a modern art museum in Munich about a month ago, and one piece of "art" was two pieces of pink yarn, strung ceiling to floor. It was titled "pink flamingo". That was easily the biggest piece of utter crap I've ever seen in a museum. (Of course, this was a rather strange museum where the alarms went off literally every 5-10 minutes because people got too close to the art). The alarms going off, and the nazi guard that yelled at people was a hell of a lot more expressive of Bavaria than anything I saw in that museum.

Re:Everything is Art (but some art just sucks)

[drinkypoo]

In my view, call anything you like "art", but some art just plain sucks monkey dick.

YES! That's it exactly. If it even makes concessions to the art of creation, it's art! It doesn't matter if it's a commercial for lemon pledge or your kid's crayon pictures on your fridge. Either way, no one gives a fuck - but they're still both art.

Art is, well, it's art. Practically everything involves artistry. The notion that you can't question its value is what's retarded.