Nedyalka Panova is an artist-in-residence inthe School of Physics & Astronomy. Her work explores the boundaries between art and science, organic and inorganic, natural, synthetic and manmade. Nedyalka works in collaboration with the Organic Semiconductor Centre led by Prof. Ifor Samuel on “The use of creative art for explaining organic semiconductors”. The purpose of the project was to give a higher visibility to the interesting phenomenon of organic semiconductors using their aesthetic values.
Interdisciplinary collaboration such as this, between artists and scientists, brings together experts from different fields. The result is art exhibitions which provide a different way for the public to access or connect with the science.
While the concept of the colours and shapes of natural materials have inspired artists in their studies of nature for centuries, progress by scientists in material science has created a new range of synthetic materials which are manufactured in entirely different ways. In this context, contemporary art and science start asking new questions, such as:
How can art respond to the colours that are invisible to visible light?
How can invisible 2-D imprinted patterns be used as colours and structures?
The line between the past and the future modern technological world is drawn with a nanoscale precision and the question is:
Are these new technological tools also a new media for creative endeavours?
Organic semiconductors combine properties of both metals and organic polymers with their capacity to conduct electricity. This opens new doors for applications in light communication, organic LED displays, healthcare and harvesting energy from abundant natural sources such as sunlight. Their general target is to offer an alternative solution to the existing inorganic electronic components or to combine the best of both worlds in a new generation of hybrid devices.
Arabidopsis Thaliana seed germination used for explosive sensing.
Image: Nedyalka Panova (2016)
Light Box celebrates light in all its aspects – solar, sacred, scientific, nourishing, and poetic. Produced as a result of meetings between Professor Crawford and McBeath and contemporary physicists whose work centres on light, the work juxtaposes a series of new haiku with specially taken photographs. The relation between poems and pictures is often teasingly oblique: neither simply illustrates the other. Instead, they ‘resonate’ together, each enhancing the other.
Exactly 150 years ago the great Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell published his most influential paper on electromagnetism (a paper crucial to Einstein). Maxwell had a scientific instrument called a ‘light box’. Nineteenth-century scientists sometimes wrote of light ‘resonating’. The new Light Box was produced after the poet and the photographer met leading physicists who work in optoelectronics.
Robert Crawford and Norman McBeath discussing
using coumarin as part of a new photographic process.
'One of the physicists was the late Professor John W. Allen, who led a team that invented the
world’s first practicable LEDs in 1961. Though his early scientific
papers are now archived in the Science Museum in London, John Allen’s
story is not well known. When Crawford and McBeath met Professor Allen,
he showed them some of his early LEDs, which were then called ‘crystal
lamps’. Norman McBeath’s remarkable portrait photograph of John W. Allen
is part of Light Box, and the accompanying haiku sums up
Robert Crawford’s sense of this modest, tenacious inventor who, more
than fifty years after his innovative work on LEDs, was still in 2015 developing in St Andrews new ways of working with light.
Another pioneering scientist involved in Light Box is Professor Ifor Samuel, who leads the Organic Semiconductor Optoelectronics Research Group in the School of Physics & Atronomy, and whose work has involved perfecting new light-emitting materials. Several members of Professor Samuel’s group worked with the poet and photographer. One of the physicists, Vietnamese chemist Hien Nguyen who has synthesized for the first time a new form of the chemical coumarin, made her discovery available to Scottish PhD student Stuart Thomson who worked with Norman McBeath to use this chemical for the very first time in a photographic process. The result was juxtaposed with a haiku entitled ‘Aton’ (named after the Aton or Aten – the ancient Egyptian sun god) and features in Light Box.
Following on, the 'Loch Computer' project brings together writers, artists, computer scientists, humanities scholars and digital curators to ponder the meaning of remoteness and connectedness in the digital age. It is funded by a Scottish Government Arts & Humanities Research Network Award from the Royal Society of Edinburgh. The project crosses traditional boundaries between arts and sciences, as well as between scholarship and creative practice.
The project led to an exhibition at the Edinburgh College of Art, and an artists's box book by Robert Crawford, The Book of Iona, published by Birlinn Ltd.
A red blood cell, 1/10 the width
of a human hair held with
gently with laser light
Optical tweezers, miniscule forces that light exerts on micron-size particles, developed by researchers in the School of Physics and Astronomy, have empowered scientists to perform important studies on single molecules, cells and colloids without inflicting damage. The technique of optical tweezing is difficult and multifaceted, involving lasers, microscopes, imaging systems, specialized software and complex opto-mechanical design. The St Andrews Optical Manipulation Group has developed a number of innovations in beam shaping and applications for the optical tweezing and sorting market. This has led to the development of a suite of products, particularly for the biomedical sector, based on the group’s technology, resulting in more than £1M worth of sales in over 10 countries for the licensing company. The systems are regularly used to study single cells and even single molecules to help understand the biological world.
The Seeing Light Through a New Light outreach program has currently reached approximately 25,000 people across the UK Scotland. The aim of the program is to enthuse and excite the public about light and its use in medical and biological applications. Interactive shows, lectures and workshops are delivered throughout Fife, Scotland and the UK to school, family and adult audiences to show how light is changing our life. If you would like to book/request an event or activity or would like more information about the project please contact Kishan Dholakia (kd1@st-andrews.ac.uk).
Over 27,000 pupils have been involved in hands-on, experiential learning activities
in 150 schools across Scotland since January 2012!
GeoBus is an educational outreach project developed by the Department of Earth & Environmental Sciences. It visits schools every week of term time from Tuesday to Friday (roughly 35 weeks per year). The project:
supports the teaching of Earth science in secondary schools
provides teaching resources that are not readily available to educators
introduces Earth science research outcomes and young researchers to pupils and teachers
provides a bridge between industry, HEIs, Research Councils, and schools
highlights career opportunities in geology specifically, and Earth sciences and STEM areas more broadly
Who runs GeoBus and where does it go? GeoBus is coordinated by Kathryn Roper, a BSc Geoscience graduate from St Andrews and a trained secondary school teacher, and Charlotte Pike, a graduate of the University of Edinburgh. The project is directed by Dr Ruth Robinson. Undergraduates, postgraduates and academics also accompany GeoBus on some school visits, and industry professionals are encouraged to directly participate in order to improve school pupils' understanding of career opportunities. GeoBus brings educational resources to schools across Scotland and northern England, and visits rural and urban areas in all council regions.
What does GeoBus do? GeoBus is a mobile outreach resource that is dedicated to providing a range of interactive learning experiences for school pupils. The workshops are designed to include research outcomes and fit with the curricula. Key aspects include the use of equipment not normally available in schools, the opportunity to conduct experiments, and experience outdoor field work. Teacher support is a key component of GeoBus for teachers, with or without geological backgrounds. Workshops to support the chemistry, physics, and biology curricula are currently being developed.
A wearable light source that can treat many skin cancers and acne has been invented by Professor Ifor Samuel (School of Physics and Astronomy) working with Professor James Ferguson (Ninewells Hospital, Dundee) in light-emitting-polymers. Using support from Scottish Enterprise, they showed organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) could be used to make a light-emitting "sticking plaster" that provides a new light source for medicine. The light-based treatment is gentler than surgery and so leads to a better cosmetic outcome. It is an improvement over conventional photodynamic therapy (PDT), which is only available in a limited number of hospitals because of the specialised equipment involved, because the patient can move around during treatment, pain is reduced, and a hospital visit can be avoided.
Ambicare Health Ltd developed the prototype ambulatory devices into a form suitable for regulatory approval and manufacture. This resulted in two products, “Ambulight”, a portable, wearable light source with battery pack, used for treating non-melanoma skin cancers and dysplasia, and “Lustre” for the treatment of acne. The more effective, simplified treatment with Ambulight has meant an increase in the number of patients treated per clinic, a success rate of 84% of lesions being clear after one year, and patients having a comfortable, portable, home-based treatment. The advantage of Lustre is that it enables acne to be treated at home, using blue light treatment rather than drugs or chemicals. Both systems are in use in the UK and the Netherlands.
Nedyalka Panova is an artist-in-residence inthe School of Physics & Astronomy. Her work explores the boundaries between art and science, organic and inorganic, natural, synthetic and manmade. Nedyalka works in collaboration with the Organic Semiconductor Centre led by Prof. Ifor Samuel on “The use of creative art for explaining organic semiconductors”. The purpose of the project was to give a higher visibility to the interesting phenomenon of organic semiconductors using their aesthetic values.
