Microscopic art

Sometimes it's good to blog off topic. I was watching a doco last night when it introduced the remarkable topic of art made out of microscopic plankton. That's right, the image you can see to the right is made out of really tiny microscopic plankton, called diatoms, each carefully placed to make the pattern you see.  British artist Klaus Kemp laboriously creates these patterns by picking and placing the diatoms using threads of glass under a microscope. However, surprisingly it turns out this was a popular Victorian pass time. You can see how it's done in the video below - I doubt I'd have the patience.

The Diatomist from Matthew Killip on Vimeo.

Van Gogh Meets Alan #Turing

Google developers present a video that showcases projects they have been working on that merge art and technology - where Van Gogh meets Alan Turing.

New Zealand Artist Inspired by Robotics

Sam Broad, working out of Lower Hutt in New Zealand, has produced a series of works inspired by robots but with a distinctive Kiwi flavor. You can see more examples of his prints at his website (http://www.sambroad.co.nz/) where he has on sale a range of prints, postcards and his unique tiki robots
[Recommended by Bob Doran]

The art of finding inspiration in #Turing

A Royal Society blog post by Cheryl Field called "The art of of finding inspiration" features an art work called "Fellows of the Royal Society: John Maynard Smith, Richard Feynman & Alan Turing." The artist says that "this imposing portrait is wrought from tens of thousands of hand-mounted and tinted, scintillating metallic discs, shimmering gently in a breeze generated by a host of computer fans." Read more about the inspiration behind this art work on the Royal Society blog.

Intuition and Ingenuity: An Art Exhibition in Celebration of the Life of Alan Turing

Portrait of Alan Turing by Paul the Robot,
built by artist Patrick Tresset

A touring art exhibition in celebration of the life of Alan Turing called “Intuition and Ingenuity” is now showing as as part of the Kinetica Artfair at 35 Marylebone Road, London, NW1 5LS. It will then be showing at the Lighthouse during the Brighton Science Festival and later at venues around the country.


    "2012 will be the 100th anniversary of the birth of Alan Turing, one of the greatest minds Britain has produced. Between inventing the digital computer and helping to decode the German Enigma machine, to founding the science of artificial intelligence, the world today would have been a very different place without his ideas.
    His work on morphogenesis (what makes organisms grow in particular shapes) and the now famous “Turing Test” for machine intelligence have captured the imagination of artists for decades.
This exhibition, which takes its name from Turing’s own writing, brings together a number of important artists, from digital art pioneers to emerging contemporary artists, including Roman Verostko, boredomresearch, Patrick Tresset, Anna Dumitriu and Alex May." 
    
Worth a visit if you are in the vicinity, there are some fascinating looking pieces in the Kinetica Artfair (preview here).

Artists are inspired by Alan Turing

Laurie Frick – Daily Diary (April)

It's not just computer scientists who are getting into the spirit of the Alan Turing Year, artists are also being inspired by his work in biological morphogenesis, machine intelligence and cryptography. ART (Artists Redefine Turing) is a collaborative "experiment where each artist brings his or her unique capacity for pattern recognition to answer a simple question: How does your work comment on the Centenary of Alan Turing and potential futures of intelligence?"