#frozensmoke

From 2017

I was playing around with ink + watercolor pencils and made this art of my ace-spectrum Warrior OCs for asexual awareness week.

A new amazing material: Aerogel

Material Innovation Week 2

In this week lecture,Thomas Thwaites who is an artist graduated from RCA visited us and presented his brilliant  project —‘ The Toaster Project ’.  In this project, he has built a working toaster from scratch, extracting raw materials and processing them himself in an attempt to replicate a mass-produced toaster he bought in a shop for less than £5.00. (Fairs, 2009)

For made this toaster,Thomas traveled around the country to find the rocks and minerals that would be made into metal, and also attempted to make plastic . The video he showed us on the lecture tell the whole story about his ‘ dig material trip’.

I like his works and presentation, not only because his interesting experience in find those kind of common material but also because his attitude in research the history of every materials. He try to use his project and experience lead us to reconsidering all the material around our daily life.

Thomasthwaites, (2009).The Toaster Project. 

Related to the Thomas’s presentation, this week  we have been ask to do deep research about  the material that we choose. I was attracted by a new material called Aerogel.

Azuremagazine, (2013).

What are Aerogels

Aerogels are a unique class of open-pore polymer foams that can be prepared from either organic or inorganic precursors. Aerogels are typically prepared using sol-gel chemistry, starting with liquids that form tiny sol particles, which eventually connect together in chain-like fashion to make a semi-solid gel. When the solvent is removed from the wet gel and replaced by air in a manner that does not collapse the delicate gel structure, a solid aerogel results. What makes the aerogels unique is their nano-sized structure; they consist of particles and pores both of which are smaller than wavelengths of visible light. This unique nano-structure is responsible for many of the unusual acoustic, mechanical, optical and thermal properties observed for aerogels.  (Mkt-intl.com, 2016)

Where is Aerogel comes from 

Aerogel was first created by Samuel Stephens Kistler in 1931, as a result of a bet[citation needed] with Charles Learned over who could replace the liquid in "jellies" with gas without causing shrinkage.

Aerogels are produced by extracting the liquid component of a gel through supercritical drying. This allows the liquid to be slowly dried off without causing the solid matrix in the gel to collapse from capillary action, as would happen with conventional evaporation. The first aerogels were produced from silica gels. Kistler's later work involved aerogels based on alumina, chromia and tin dioxide. Carbon aerogels were first developed in the late 1980s. (Wikipedia, 2015)

Filacart, (2014).

Aerogels – materials with extraordinary properties.

Aerogels have an extremely high nano-porosity and therefore exhibit extraordinary properties: high pore volume (up to 99 %), ultralow density (0.2 – 0.5 g/cm3), high surface area (up to 1200 m2/g). They can be synthesized from inorganic or organic precursors. Currently silica aerogels are the most frequently used and have a wide range of applications. Aerogels are the best known thermal insulators (thermal conductivity < 5 mW/mK) and are almost inert against molten metal.

Aerogels – a material with versatile applications 

fire insulation and sound absorbing material NASA’s STARDUST mission for collecting cosmic dust insulation material for space craft and space suits frequency doubling (AerOptics) additives for moulding materials crucible material for solidification experiments (Artemis) carrier medium for chemical and pharmaceutical substances applications in fuel cells, catalysts and super capacitors      (Voigtmann, 2010)

A Video : Introduction of Aerogels

Youtube, (2014). QUEST Lab: Aerogel - KQED QUEST.

Aerogel Use in Art

When I first saw Aerogel I was high attracted by its  appearance. It looks like sold smoke. As an amazing new material, I was wondering how t can be use in art work. After research fro a while, I find few artist have already try it in their art works, and the outcome is also amazing.

‘A Piece of Sky Between Your Fingers’ Silica Aerogel, vapour, dimensions variable, ©Michalou(di)s 2004.

Visual Artist Michalous utilises the ethereal medium ‘Aerogel’, a material developed for interstellar space technology, to create sculptural works.

“ Looking for clouds I had found Aerogel! Immediately, I thought of creating immaterial, ethereal sculptures with it. I knew nothing about this material and the difficulties of its expensive fabrication, but I was certain that I would have something to do with it. I was so surprised by the appearance of something that you’re not quite sure is there! To believe your eyes, you need your hand and not only to touch, but also to handle, to move around, to press the material...Thus you discover that it is so lightweight and fragile...  ”

“ Silica Aerogel has no definite geometrical form! When you look at a piece of this substance, it’s up to you to decide where to focus your eyes. We can say that the space of Silica Aerogel is a personification of what Henri Poincaré named a "representative space"1, a space that you cannot measure, you just live in with all your senses. This vaporous and fragile substance breaks the conventional boundaries of the euclidean space…The first time you look at sculpture made of this extraordinary material you think that it is not a 3-D object, you think that it is a gas, a projection, a hologram. However, this nebulous mass -that is also an optical, a tactile and a kinetic space- is there, like a memory, like a dream. It’s like all the veils of the bride are there without loosing its mysterious and indefinite character.  ”

                                                                               ––  Iannis Michalous, 2002. (Solgel.com, 2010)

Liliane Lijn:  Stardust  [6]

Lilianelijin, (2008). Stardust. 

Liliane Lizin is another Artist who began working with aerogel during her Space Science Laboratory residency in 2005.

For the first time in history, stardust, particles of comets and burned out stars, has been brought to our planet from beyond Mars.  In a breathtaking metaphor of this revolutionary NASA mission, Lijn’s Heavenly Fragmentsimagine interstellar dust as space-time ruins with the surprising capacity to transform our perceived reality.

Lijn believes that Aerogel confirms the physicist David Bohm’s vision of matter as ‘frozen light’. ‘I felt that Aerogel was a piece of the sky. The way it reacted to light, the impact cones made in it by cosmic dust, its net structure creating a solid that was also empty; I recognized all of these characteristics as part of the language of my work.’

In this work, aerogel was used to collect space dust on missions – a romantic-sounding substance which looks more like regular dust than anything. However, when exhibited in a glass case, scattered over rosin (solid resin) and punctuated with aerogel cones the effect is stunning.  (Liliane Lijn, 2008)

My review of Aerogel: Relate to Interior Design

Like I said at the beginning, the appearance  of aerogel attracted me very much when I first time saw t picture. After did research of it, I know more about its feathers and start to wondering if it can be use in  architecture and interior design.

Aerogel looks like Air but it is strong as steel, and also it is a very good insulator. According to these unique feathers, I am thinking about why not aerogel can be the main material of wall? Just image, if people living in a house with a stable but transparent wall around, it should be amazing. On the other  hand, people also can easy decoration their wall as Michalous did, put some subject inside the aerogel wall, make it look like suspended in space.

It is also reminded me to rethink about my  last year project, which is about building a translucent space in the gallery.

The topic of this project is tea. I was aiming to build a tea house in the gallery where the wall is translucent that some real tea inside the wall. People will see the green tea leaves floating around when  they walk in this space. The material I used is acrylic. I put some tea leaves between  2 acrylic board then stick them together, then make it stand in space.

The outcome of this model is not bad, but now I am wondering some day I can try aerogel in this kind project. As a new material in 21 century, aerogel offered the possibility to every artist and designer to create more amazing works.  

Bibliography:

NASA, (2006). Stardust Aerogel Samples. [image] Available at: http://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/multimedia/images/2006/stardust-aerogel.html [Accessed 28 Oct. 2015].

Thwaites, T. (2009). The toaster Project. [image] Available at: http://www.thomasthwaites.com/the-toaster-project/ [Accessed 28 Oct. 2015].

Azbremagazine, (2013). GXN's Rad Scientists. [image] Available at: http://www.azuremagazine.com/article/gxns-rad-scienstists/  [Accessed 28 Oct. 2015].

Fliacart. (2014).10 Futuristic Materials You Should Know About.  [image] Available at: https://filacart.com/blog/10-futuristic-materials-you-should-know-about/  [Accessed 28 Oct. 2016].

Institute of Materials Physics In Space, (2010). [image] Available at: http://www.dlr.de/mp/en/desktopdefault.aspx/tabid-4961/11054_read-25264/ [Accessed 28 Oct. 2015].

Youtube, (2014). QUEST Lab:Aerogel - KQED QUEST. [video] Available at: https://youtu.be/kHnen2nSmDY [Accessed 28 Oct. 2015].

Hellomaterialsblog, (2012). Materials, Art and Science – It’s In The Details. [Image] Available from:  http://hellomaterialsblog.com/2012/12/17/materials-art-and-science-its-in-the-details [Accessed: 28th October 2015]

Lilianelijin, (2008). Stardust. [Image] Available from: http://www.lilianelijn.com/portfolio-item/stardust/  [Accessed: 28th October 2015]

Fairs, M. (2009). The Toaster Project by Thomas Thwaites | Dezeen. [online] Dezeen. Available at: http://www.dezeen.com/2009/06/27/the-toaster-project-by-thomas-thwaites/ [Accessed 28 Oct. 2015].

Mkt-intl.com, (2016). Silica Aerogel. [online] Available at: https://mkt-intl.com/materials/aerogel/silica-aerogel/ [Accessed 28 Oct. 2015].

Wikipedia, (2015). Aerogel. [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerogel [Accessed 28 Oct. 2015].

Voigtmann, T. (2010). DLR - Institute of Materials Physics in Space - DLR Summer School on Aerogels. [online] Dlr.de. Available at: http://www.dlr.de/mp/en/desktopdefault.aspx/tabid-4961/11054_read-25264/ [Accessed 28 Oct. 2015].

Solgel.com, (2010). The Sol-Gel Gateway. [online] Available at: http://www.solgel.com/articles/dec02/aeroart.asp [Accessed 28 Oct. 2015].