Author: cancerartscinetwork

NYC dream: How to study Art History

Posted on by cancerartscinetwork
Art History is our story from the past. The one and only possible way of studying the past is via documentation created in the past. Unfortunately, in the field of Art History, the process of documentation or cataloguing did not follow any objective rules. Hence, our evaluation of the history of art is rather subjective and biased by our individual opinion and assessments. In the following essay, I will review different ways in which Art History has been studied from the Renaissance to the present day. In the end, I will also provide my personal opinion on which methodology offered the most interesting analysis of the past.

To understand the art during Renaissance period, we need to study the ideas of ancient Greek and Roman authors and philosophers. The question, “What is beauty?” always intrigued the scholars and artists in ancient days. Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and Cicero, described “beauty” with specific lexicons – harmony and proportion, fantasy, elegance and vitality. In addition, the history of ancient Greek paintings written by the Roman author Pliny the Elder in his encyclopedia “Natural History” influenced the art during Renaissance. Pliny’s writings were verified by later discovery such as the signature of three sculptors on the sculpture piece “Laocoon”. In addition, Giorgio Vasari’s book named “’The Lives of the Most Excellent Italian Architects, Painters, and Sculptors” provided a biological model, where art, like living beings, is born, grows, ages and dies. Vasari also focused on the personal style of each artist. This consideration of individual personalities of artists provided a novel layer to art connoisseurship.

During 18thcentury, the focus of the study moved from the biographies and personalities of artists to the development costs. Winckelmann was a proponent of this idea. Like Vasari, he clarified that there were no universal rules for critiquing or creating the beauty in art.

In 19th century, Art History became connected to museums and Universities and was considered as an academic discipline. During 19th and early 20thcentury, some earlier hinted concepts were developed as key theme of paintings. Two such concepts are “Formalism” and “reflection of spirit of time”. Formalism dealt with the idea that art forms had the life of their own and they evolved over time following natural rules of evolution. The reflection of the spirit of time, also known as “Zeitgeist” can be understood using the Elder of Pieter Bruegel as an example where a general mentality of the people is reflected in the themes of fear, violence and death in art.

In late 19th and early 20th century, the study of context in which the art was made gained importance. It is also during this time, when credible cataloguing of art started. There were growing skepticism towards universal categorization of art and belief on fragmented and individualized process of Art History. Guy Billout’s illustration of Jacques Derrida, a philosopher, looking at his own reflection is an example of this theme.

In recent years, Art History is more aware of the socio-economic conditions under which art was created. The analysis of art history has also evolved as now art historians combine techniques from other disciplines such as science to study the evolution of art. One such example is Maximmilan Schich’s paper titled “Quantitative social science. A network framework of cultural history” published in Science magazine where Schich has reconstructed aggregate intellectual mobility of more than 150,000 artists all around the world over two millennia through the documentation of their birth and death locations. He used tools from graph theory to locate historical trends of cultural centers beyond the scope of specific, isolated events and narrow time intervals. Hence, my personal opinion of the best methodology of studying art history is by collecting and analyzing data from the credible catalogue of art works all around the world over many years.  

NYC dream: Being a Paradisciplinary Sci- Artist

Posted on by cancerartscinetwork
Abstract

Biomedical art-science collaboration networks are flooded with inter, cross, multi and trans – disciplinary collaborative works among artists and scientists from various areas. But, the number of paradisciplinary “sci-artists” who practice both science and art professionally in parallel, is rare. In this research paper, I report three polymaths: Leonardo Da Vinci, Alfred L. Copley, and Francois Joseph Lapointe, from three periods of human history who have been paradisciplinary “sci-artists” and have made excellent contribution to both biomedical science and art. Through these examples and my personal experience of becoming a cancer sci-artist, this paper discusses the challenges in becoming “sci-artists” and possible ways to overcome them to inspire single individuals interested in dual careers.

Introduction

Biomedical science and fine or performance art collaborative projects have become a popular area of art-science collaboration research in recent years (1,2). But, there are several problems in collaboration among multiple biologists and artists in the field of biology based art, as Francois Lapointe discusses in his SEAD white paper (3). First, the biologist may be used as a technician in the process of collaboration without any formal recognition of scientific contribution to the creative process. In this case, the biomedical science only provides a context for the artists to create their art works. Second, the artist may assume that he/she is doing science while only participating in the process of science. Lack of expertise and knowledge in literature review, hypothesis formulation, series of experiments to test such hypothesis for the artist would delay any advancement of science via this art-science project whatsoever (3). One solution to such problems is – paradisciplinarity, where a single individual rigorously learn and practice both biomedical science and art at the same time.

In paradisciplinarity, the individual should perform both the disciplines in parallel in a synchronous manner. For example: a neurobiologist who studies patterns of information flow through the neurons in a diseased condition and paints neurons will fit this criterion; but, a neurobiologist who changed career to become an actor does not (E.g. Mayim Bialik, who plays “Amy Farah Fowler” on “Big Bang Theory” had a Ph.D. in Neuroscience. But she gave up research to become an actor (4)). Additionally, the importance and involvement of each disciplinary practice should be relatively symmetrical in the curriculum of an individual. For example: a composer who publishes scientific papers in acoustics and also performs in a concert hall professionally and regularly will meet this criterion. A physicist who publishes studies on string theory in scientific journals and paints as a hobby at home does not. Strictly speaking, a “sci-artist” is a scientist and an artist at the same time with experience in scientific methodologies and artistic practices.

Although such paradisciplinary sci-artists are rare, it is not entirely impossible to find such example in the history of mankind. The very first golden age of improvements in both biology and art began during the renaissance period. Leonardo Da Vinci was called “The Renaissance Man” for a reason. Unlike other artists like Rafael, Michelangelo etc., Da Vinci was a painter, sculptor, architect, musician, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist and writer. He is a perfect example of a polymath and sci-artist. Later, in 20th century, Alfred L. Copley can be considered as another biomedical sci-artist who practiced medicine, as a biologist studied the flow of blood through vascular system of human, and as a painter created the flow of liquid using abstract expressionism techniques on canvas. Finally, Francois Joseph Lapointe in 21st century, is the third example of a biomedical sci-artist who had two Ph.D.s: one in evolutionary biology in 1992 and the second is in dance in 2012. Currently, he works on human genome research in his lab at University of Montreal, as well as choreographing creative dance forms for various performances around the world. These three exceptional polymaths and biomedical sci-artists are discussed in the next section.

Leonardo Da Vinci: The Renaissance Man

Leonardo Da Vinci epitomizes the boldness of the Renaissance, when the confidence in the capabilities of man led to the idea that they could excel in many activities. Born in 1452, Leonardo was trained in Florence, and he was very much the product of the cultural and artistic environment of that city. He worked for the court of the Medici family there. Later for many years in Milan for the ruler of the city, Ludovico Sforza, he worked as an artist and as a military engineer. At the end of his life he was called to France by king Francis I. He died during 1519 (5, 6).

His interest in art and science were linked to each other, like two sides of the same coin. Figure 1 shows a drawing by Leonardo. It shows studies of the way water behaves when interrupted by foreign object and, at the bottom of the image, when falling from some height on to a pool. Here, the intention of the artist is not to draw a snapshot of a beautiful thing, it is to understand the way the current of water behaves. His tool for doing this is drawing. Interestingly, at that time fractals (self repeating units) were not known to the mathematicians. Neither did scientists understand the interaction of order (predictability) and chaos (unpredictability) in a complex system. However, Leonardo’s drawing and his notes clearly shows that he started to understand the behavior of complex systems using flow of water as an example (7).

He studied human body as a complex systems and he drew many parts of it. Figure 2 shows his drawing, Vitruvian Man, where the proportion of human body was studied. Even today, artists practicing figure drawing, character designing and animation follow these simple rules of proportions of human body studied by Leonardo. As is the case today, imaging was in the forefront of scientific research at the time, and Leonardo was a leader in this field. Painting was only one of the many activities in which he excelled. We only know approximately thirteen paintings by Leonardo, depending on whether we accept or not a few attributions in them, and several of these paintings are damage or unfinished. In spite of this he was enormously influential (5).

The largest Art – Science research community founded by Frank Malina in 1982 was named after this legendary Sci-artist – Leonardo, International Society of Art, Science and Technology.

Alfred L. Copley: One man two visions

Alfred Lewin Copley was born on June 19, 1910 in Germany. He resided in Dresden until the age of 20. Then he moved from one city to another in Europe staying for short time in each city such as in Berlin, Frankfurt, Heidelberg, and Basel. After he completed his studies at medical school, he moved to New York City to work as a medical practitioner in 1937. At this point, in addition to practicing medicine, he started taking both practice based and theoretical art classes. He became an U.S. citizen in 1943 and mostly resided in New York City till 1952. He spent 2 years in Paris and then finally settled at 50 Central Park West in New York City. He passed away in 1992 (8).


As a scientist, Copley studied “rheology” (Greek Rheo – Flow, and Logia – Study of) i.e. the study of the flow of matter, primarily in a liquid state, but also as ‘soft solids’ or solids under conditions in which they respond with plastic flow rather than deforming elastically in response to an applied force (9). In 1948 he introduced the word “biorheology” to describe rheology in biological systems (10). In 1952 he introduced the word “hemorheology”, to describe the study of the way blood and blood vessels function as part of the living organism (11). In 1966 he established the International Society of Hemorheology, which changed its name and scope in 1969 to the International Society of Biorheology (ISB) (9). In 1972 the ISB awarded him its Poiseuille gold medal (9).

Alfred took up the artist name Alcopley while residing in New York City. He is well known for his abstract expressionist paintings (Figure 4). In 1949 he was one of twenty artists who founded the Eighth Street Club. The group also included Franz Kline, Willem de Kooning and Alcopley’s close friend, the composer Edgard Varèse (12). He participated in the Ninth Street Show in 1952 and had a solo exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam in 1962 (9) His work is held in the collection of the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo (9).


Alfred believed in both art and science as two major paths towards the exploration of nature and the advancement of human knowledge.  In 1991 he wrote – “The notion that art and science are contradictory originated with Nietzsche, who considered art as the highest form of human activity. In recent years the assumption has been made that art and science or, in general, the humanities and science, represent two different ‘cultures’ opposing each other. I do not share such a view, as it appears to me that its proponents do not gasp the similarity or identity of the creative side of two of teh most noble activities of our species. This was not as evident at the time of Nietzsche as it is now” (8).

Francois Joseph Lapointe: Dual Ph.D. in science and art

Francois Joseph Lapointe, born in Quebec, Canada is a contemporary polymath. He earned his B.Sc. in Biological Sciences from the University of Montreal in 1988. In 1992, he finished his Ph.D. in Evolutionary Biology from The University of Montreal. His research area includes Phylogenetic Analysis – phylogenomics, Population Genetics – Molecular Ecology, Conservation biology of endangered species, and Biostatistics – mathematical modeling (13). Interestingly, while working as an assistant professor at the university, he enrolled in a Ph.D. in dance program. He choreographed precise movement at each nucleotide in the genome of the dancers so that they could interpret their own DNA. In addition to his thesis submission in 2012, he created a public performance with 30 professional and semi-professional dancers (14).


On a personal communication (15), Francois wrote to me – “To make a long story short about myself, I must admit that is has been a very long and “interesting” journey to become an art scientist (although I doubt it every day). The thing is that when you expect to have a dual career and want to be successful at both, you must work twice as hard, or accept that you’ll have to be less successful than if you were doing only one thing – science OR art – and not two things at once – science AND art. My own opinion on this is that I will never be fully recognized as a bona fide artist. However, what I do as an “artist” cannot be done without my science training, and without having access to a science lab. For me, being an art scientist is not about being a scientist who also can do art, or being an artist who plays with science. It is more like having a split personality. When I do science, I think as a scientist. When I am doing art, I try to think as an artist (this is the difficult part since the scientist is always looking over my shoulder). Foremost, I see my role and that of others like me as that of an intercessor between two worlds, a translator between two languages.


About how to do it? Don’t know the best way. Not sure that you need a formal education in art, or maybe just practicing art on a daily basis. For me, doing a second PhD in art was not about getting the PhD. It was more a challenge to push myself by meeting on a regular basis with my fellow students in art. Otherwise, I would have stayed home, waiting for a miracle to happen. It takes a lot of energy to succeed in art, probably more than succeeding in science. There is less money, more competition, and it is highly subjective. You become fashionable in a flash and disappear the next day. Very unlikely in science, where it’s more about the data than your personality”.

Cancer Research and Fine Art – a personal experience

I have always carried out experiments in scientific research during the day and practiced various art forms during the night. But, in recent years, they have become very strongly connected. Being in cancer research, a field where many scientists are trying to first understand and then cure a very complicated disease, I have observed that the general public, although affected by the disease on a direct or indirect level, do not understand the complexities dealt with in this research field. In addition, for cancer researchers creative thinking becomes a necessity of utmost importance. I tried to address these problems in my own way.

There are certain individuals who are active visionaries and proponents in art-science collaboration fields. They have been of great motivation and help to me. Cynthia Pannucci, the founder and director of Art Science Collaboration Inc, New York, and Dr. Roger Malina, Executive editor of the Leonardo journal, MIT Press, Massachusetts have been of great help in my art-science journey so far. My Ph.D. mentor, Dr. John Minna, the director of Hamon Center of Therapeutic Oncology Research at UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, Texas has been very supportive of my interest and practice in cancer based art. I have also been very fortunate to meet and learn art from excellent artists such as Caroline Shaw Ometz, Denny Doran and Dr. Anne Gordon Perry.


I’m defending my Ph.D. thesis titled “Oncogene-induced signaling heterogeneity in lung cancer” at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, Texas in June, 2015. In the same month, I’m starting classes in the BA (Hons) Illustration program from the University of Hertfordshire, UK. I am working on a cancer -art collaboration project called “Cancer: Finding beauty in the beast” with four Dallas based artists. My first cancer-art paper was published in Leonardo journal in May, 2015 (17). I will continue to grow and learn in my journey of becoming a paradisciplinary cancer sci-artist.

Conclusion

It is not easy to become successful in dual careers that are not perceived as well-connected in popular culture. As Francois pointed out clearly, to have two successful careers in parallel, one needs to work twice as hard. There are several general problems associated with such a career path such as difficulties in combining the quantitative and qualitative matrices in both the fields, lack of comparison of different curricula, lack of enough hands on experience of the mediators in both the fields, and difficulties in acquiring funding. In addition, for individuals interested in such art-science career may need to deal with problems associated with the lack of visionaries in art-science field in their specific geographical locations.

The National Academies Keck Futures Initiative at Irvine, California wrote an interesting summary of the problem in contemporary discourse in 2015 (18). To quote them – “The Renaissance has been described as an “integrative period” of unified knowledge – a time during which art and science were one. Homo Universalis, or polymaths, embraced a proficient understanding of art, architecture, science and engineering, leading to a period of wondrous discovery. A shift from integration to specialization occurred over time, which some presume has separated the domains of knowledge and experience and contributed to distinct cultures. Have the cultures really become distinct? There are multiple examples of collaborations ranging from American painter Abbot Thayer’s invention of camouflage to composer George Antheil and actress Hedy Lamarr’s collaboration that led to the invention of “frequency hopping” – the encryption technology on cell phones that helps to prevent messages from being intercepted. Stents used to treat aortic aneurysms were designed using the principles of origami, and Kenneth Snelson’s “tensegrity” sculptures have created a new form of engineering and have helped biologists explain the shapes of cells. Every frontier of human inquiry is art-science in nature in that intuition and imagination are equal partners to deduction and precision. The question is not whether art, design, science, engineering, and medicine are distinct and should be fully integrated, but how do they meet to serve as the bookends for innovation”.

References

1. Pandilovski, M. (2008). Art in the biotech era. Adelaide: Experimental Art Foundation.
2. Reichle, I. (2009). Art in the age of technoscience: Genetic engineering, robotics, and artificial life in contemporary art. New York: Springer.
3. Lapointe, F.J. (2012). How I became an “art [scient] ist”: A tale of paradisciplinarity, SEAD white paper, , accessed on June 11, 2015.
4. Mayim Bialik on Wikipedia , accessed on June 11, 2015.
5. EdX course UC3Mx: CEH.1-ENx Explaining European Paintings, 1400 to 1800, Lecture 11: Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519). Knowledge and Beauty in the High Renaissance, , accessed June 11, 2015.
6. Fremantle, R. (1992) God and Money: Florence and the Medici in the Renaissance, Leo S. Olschki Editore.
7. Da Vinci, L. (Unknown), translated by Richter J.P. (2014), The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci: Complete & Illustrated, CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.
8. Alcopley L. (1993), compiled by Silberberg A. One Man- Two Visions: L. Alcopley- A. L. Copley, Artist and Scientist- A Retrospective, on the Occasion of an Eightieth Birthday, Pergamon Press.
9. Alfred L. Copley in Wikipedia , Accessed on June 11, 2015.
10. E. A. O’Rear et al. (2004) Rheology Bulletin Vol. 73, No. 2 “International Society of Biorheology”.
11. J. F. Stoltz, Megha Singh, Pavel Riha, (1999). Hemorheology in Practice, IOS Press.
12. Steven Johnson (2002) The New York Schools of Music and Visual Arts, Routledge.
13. Francois Joseph Lapointe on University of Montreal , accessed on June 11, 2015.
14. Francois Joseph Lapointe’s website , accessed on June 11, 2015.
15. Gewin, V. (2013). Interdisciplinarity: Artistic merit. Nature, 496: 537-539.
16. Personal communication via email.
17. Leonardo Journal just accepted, MIT Press, , accessed on June 11, 2015.
18. Keck Future Initiative website , accessed on June 11, 2015.

NYC dream: Adaptation of Swan Lake to Black Swan to a Medieval Style Painting

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Unlike many American children, I did not grow up listening to Tchaikovsky’s famous composition of “Swan Lake”. Neither did I grow up watching my sisters practicing ballet wearing their tutu. While growing up, I have watched classical Indian dance performances, such as, Bharat Natyam, Kathak and Odissi. Among them, the dance form Kathak caught my attention because of the involvement of incredibly fast spins. I was always amazed and curious by the fact that the dancer did not faint after taking so many fast spins and still stood a farm pose in the end smiling at the audience. I did not know that ballet had similar spins called “fouette”. To my astonishment, in 2011, for the first time I experienced this similarity while watching Darren Aronofsky’s phychological thriller film “Black Swan”.

Black Swan talks about the journey of a ballerina, Nina Sayers, to perform “perfectly” as the Swan Queen in a ballet company at New York City. Nina has been a perfect choice for the Swan Queen for her excellent precision, innocence and fragile presence.

However, to play the Swan Queen, Nina also needs to dance the evil double, Black Swan. Black Swan is a seductress. Another ballerina Lilly is a perfect embodiment of Black Swan. Lilly’s moves are “imprecise, but effortless”. Nina feels immense amount of pressure to compete with Lilly in real life as well as in the performance. During this process, she develops paranoid schizophrenia. She starts to experience a doppleganger, who is confident, seductive, and a perfect fit for Black Swan.

On the night of the show, Nina embodies both white and black swan with “perfection”, but in the process hurts herself.
After experiencing the Black Swan dance scene in the film, I went back and looked up for the original Swan Lake. There has been many versions of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake. The version that caught my attention was Bolshoi’s 1989 production. Alla Mickalchanko played the role of the Swan Queen. The revised choreography was composed by Yuri Grigorovich. There were three unique twists in this composition. First, the Evil Wizard, Rothbert, was a twin of the hero prince, creating a psychological thriller. The audience was left with the assumption that both good and evil resided inside the Prince. Additionally, the Prince and Rothbert danced the similar steps indicating evil Rothbert’s influence over the good Prince.

Second, Alla Mickalchenko’s bold, fast, dramatic and “a bit rustic” style reminded me of Lilly’s imprecise and effortless performance in Black Swan. Finally, in the happy ending version, when Rothbert tries to kill the Prince, the Swan Queen throws herself in front of the prince and their love not only protects them from Rothbert but it kills him breaking his curse. Alla Mickalchenko’s bold presence created the perfect shield in this scene to protect the Prince against Rothbert.

The fight between good and evil is an ancient theme in all forms of literature and art. The reason for such frequent repetition of the same theme may be because art and literature get motivation from real life. From my personal life experience, the journey of a scientist in the field of biomedical science, I have observed that many of us get seduced by the glamorous publications in high impact factor journals and do not notice their lack of practical application in the clinic. Fortunately, life always gives us a second chance. Hence, the seduction of the prince by Black Swan, the conspiracy of the evil Rothbart, and finally regret and realization of Prince – all are metaphors from our lives.

Once I realized this epipheny I wanted to channel my emotion in creating a painting depicting the psychological fight between the good and the evil in the thematic background of Swan Lake. In my painting, I have portrayed the scene where the Prince asks the Black Swan’s hand for marriage. To represent royalty and wealth, the Prince is painted with golden yellow. The White Swan appears as a vision in the background to warn the Prince. The Black Swan turns him down and with the Evil Wizard leaves the ballroom victoriously. The Evil Wizard is painted in pitch black and almost as a shadow of the Black Swan to show his control over her. The most prominent literal element is the veil of Bolshoi production with a white and a black swan facing each other. The most prominent figurative elements are the wings of White and Black Swan. White Swan’s wing points downward to match with her innocence and fragility. On the contrary, Black Swan’s wing points upward to match with her confidence and victory. In general, the style of the illustration is similar to Medieval paintings where the figures are forcibly two dimensional. The painting, overall depicts the struggle each one of us face while making each choice in our life with a constant battle between good and evil within our mind.

References:

1. Review of Bolshoi’s 1989 Swan Lake
 , 
accessed on March 2, 2015
2. Video of Bolshoi Swan Lake 1989 production
 , 
accessed on March 2, 2015
3. Black Swan film information in wikipedia 
, 
accessed on March 2, 2015
4. Black Swan film information in IMDB 
, 
accessed on March 2, 2015

NYC dream: A sculpture on breast cancer

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I did this assignment for Dr. Anne Perry’s Humanities class at the Art Institute of Dallas.

Sculptor: Abou Farman and Leonor Caraballo

Bio. Summary: Abou Farman and Leonor Caraballo, have been working in video, installation, and photography since 2001. Their work focuses on public ritual and collective acts exploring the relationship between individuals and groups, unit and structure, and ways in which one enables the other while also dissolving it. Their work has been exhibited worldwide, including The Tate Modern (London), PS1/MOMA, The Project Gallery(NY), The Whitney ISP(NY), Artists Space, The Havana Biennial (Cuba), Cuenca Biennial (Ecuador), Impakt Festival (Netherlands). They have won several awards and grants including a Canada Council grant in Media Arts and The New York Community Trust. Leonor Caraballo was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2008. As of 2014, she is cancer-free.

Source (s): 1. Facebook 18 Oct. 2014

2. Eyebeam 18 Oct. 2014

Artwork title: Ruins (Carcinomas)

Commentary on art: Ruins (Carcinomas) highlights breast cancer’s links to carcinogens in our everyday environment. Depicting fallen urban landscapes over-run with tumors, the pieces are based on breast cancer tumor forms, imaged and “digitally removed” through a special process devised by caraballo-farman, that combines Magnetic Resonance Imaging and rapid prototyping. The grey ‘support material’ used by 3D printers to build up a form is generally meant to be removed. But the artists used Eyebeam’s 3D printer in such a way as to maximize the architectural form of the printer’s support structures and then hacked at the structures to partially reveal the white tumor embedded.


Source(s): 1. Youtube 18 Oct. 2014

2. Studio360 18 Oct. 2014 < http://www.studio360.org/story/227070-object-breast-cancer/>

3. Website 18 Oct 2014

Personal response: 1. Dimensionality – Full round, 2. Method of execution – Both construction and substitution 3. Composition – Small mass, grey and white colored sculpture. Very distinct lines were used to depict the ruins, but diffused forms were used to depict the tumor 4. Principles – A rectangular structure is repeated many times to describe the ruins. There is clever use of negative space to slightly separate different architectural ruins. 5. Focal point – The upper detailed construct of ruins right above the white and cloudy tumorous mass. Viewer’s eye starts at the wide bottom, moves upward towards the cloudy tumor mass. At this point, the emotional dialogue between the viewer and the sculpture is the maximum. Then, as the sculptors intended a victory of the survivor over the tumor, the viewer’s eye travels further up to the details of the ruins leaving the emotional dialogue with the tumor behind them. This bottom up approach represents Leonor Caraballo’s personal experience of rising above the fight with breast cancer in her life.

NYC dream: A cognitive model of cancer signaling in painting

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I wrote this as an assignment for Dr. Anne Perry’s Humanities class at the Art Institute. Interestingly, later, I had a chance to meet Steven J. Oscherwitz in person for a Leonardo meeting.

Visual Artist: Steven J. Oscherwitz

Bio. Summary: Steven J. Oscherwitz is a painter and a draftsman who works on digital sculptures, tactile and virtual fabrication and assemblies, art-science projects in collaboration with researchers from the University of Washington. He received his B.A. in Philosophy and Biology from the Miami University in Oxford Ohio in 1975. Next, he received his B.F.A. (1981) and M.F.A.(1983) in painting and drawing from the School of Art Institute of Chicago. He worked as an instructor teaching painting and drawing integrated with history of philosophy and the history of science at the Art Institute of Chicago. In addition, he taught a course at the department of comparative ideas at the University of Washington. Till date Steven remains an art-science proponent and an active member of Leonardo – the international society for the arts, science and technology.

Source (s): LinkedIn. Steven Oscherwitz. 10 Oct. 2014 < www.linkedin.com/pub/steven-j-oscherwitz/23/6ba/967>

Artwork title: Painting within a cancer cell 

Commentary on art: “Painting within a cancer cell” is an interdisciplinary work using techniques from painting, fluid dynamics, nanotechnology and cancer research. Utilizing a pair of laser beams (known as optical tweezers), he assembles, renders and maneuvers acrylic beads of 105 microns size. Then he places these nano-architectonic structures within cancer cells. Composed in a microscopic environment, his paintings may provide an anchorage between aesthetic experience and scientific practice.

Source(s): 1. Art Science Collaboration Inc., Painting within cancer cells, 11 Oct. 2014 < http://www.asci.org/index2.php?artikel=645>

2. Oscherwitz, Steven J. 2005. “Art/Technoscience Engages Cancer Research.” Leonardo 38 (1):11

Personal response: Oscherwitz’s “Painting within a cancer cell” is not a result of an experiment aimed towards finding cure for cancer. Rather, it is an attempt to reconcile an aesthetic experience in the process of the experimental design. The micro-painting tries to capture an abstract expressionism of biochemical signaling within cancer cells. The gel-like fluidic structure of cytoplasm of the cancer cell (shown in black and white boundary) frames the bold colored painting in the center. In addition, it creates a juxtaposition of the beauty in the signaling of a life form and the fear related to cancer as a disease. The shape of the fluid is very organic and full of curved lines as seen under the microscope. Interestingly, the shapes in the painting at the center are mostly straight lines. With occasional blue lines, the color palette is predominantly warm – a connection to the higher metabolism in cancer cells! The focal point in the painting is the pink shape surrounded by straight lines to the right and left sides. Although the sense of perspective is subtle here, the black and white framing immediately takes viewers’ attentions to the center. My only question as a cancer researcher is – if Oscherwitz painted the signaling within a normal healthy cell side-by side how different would that look like? Would it have predominantly cool colors like blue and green? Would it be less complicated?

NYC dream: A bit of NYC elsewhere – Graffiti

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6:30 AM, Saturday morning, I opened my eyes and I remembered that I have started a siRNA transfection experiment yesterday on couple of lung cancer cell lines. So, I needed to be in the lab to feed the cells fresh media. But, it was also my weekly detoxification day. After I finished taking care of those cells I had to do something unusual. Something that I have never done before.
I heard about Side Tour coming to Dallas recently. So I went to their website and found a great opportunity to learn about Graffiti from an young artist who was one of two selected mural artists working on Jean Paul Gaultier’s fashion show at the Dallas museum of art in 2011. I have been to that show and took pictures with the evening gown that Gaultier designed for Kylie Minogue for her Aphrodite tour. Today was my opportunity to meet the artist who worked with Gaultier.

I met the kind, young, and talented Jerod “DTOX” Davies in Deep Ellum. He started the tour once all the participants arrived. During the tour Jerod took us through approximately ten murals in Deep Ellum area, among which some were of his own. He explained patiently about the unique motivation, challenges and fun trivia about each one of them. The element of revolution, collaboration among artists, the pop street culture, existentialism, dialogue of two artists (who have never met each other) through their art, he explained it all. Throughout the tour he maintained a balance between “sincerely informative” and “keeping it cool” personalities. Towards the end of the tour, Jerod found a puppy running on the road and rescued him. We followed Jerod to his studio near Fair Park. In a super short crash course about stencils and graffiti he gave us a lot of information and guided us through making our very own graffiti with stencils and spray paint. 

Fortunately, my graffiti turned out to be really good for a first-timer. Jerod’s brother was having an art show at the alley behind the studio. Jerod was so happy with the graffiti that he showed it to everyone there. I smiled and bid goodbye to everyone and got on the green line at the Fair Park station. Right at that moment, I remembered a comment from an artist friend of Jerod who I met at that alley. He looked at the graffiti Jerod taught me and said “You know one artist when you see one”. As the train picked up speed, my eyes burnt and the mural by the station became blurry.

NYC dream: Subway Art

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Prologue
Year: 1972
Place: Washington Heights, NY, NY
Time: 10 PM

A group of teenagers are waiting for the A train at the 175th Street subway station with their hands tucked in their pockets. They all are sweating with excitement! They know tonight if they succeed they would be remembered forever. The train approaches. The kids start running with the train. They take their hands out. Each one of them is holding a bottle of spray paint. Before the train stops they start spraying paints of various colors on the side of the subway cars and windows. They need to be fast! At this hour, there are not many passengers. But the cops may come any time. The subway conductor tucks his head out of his window and screams – “Hey you…”! The kids hurry up. They are working on their last strokes. The doors close, the train starts moving. The kids are running with the train again. This time to finish their art. The conductor shuts his window and mutters “Crazy vandals!”. These kids are not part of the Wild Cowboys or the Red Top Gang. They are the new “Kings” of subway graffiti who just finished writing their names in all five boroughs of New York City tonight!

NYC Subway
New York City Subway is a rapid transit system. It is the 4th longest subway system in the world with 468 stations and  the 7th largest number of ridership [1] Now these are only statistics. The fun part of NYC subway is in its dynamics. Although there are certain ground rules, the service changes all the time based on train traffic, construction and other factors. Just like the city, the subway is part of an ever-changing flux of people from all around the world.
  Being at the cultural center of the Western world, what sets NYC subway apart from other subway systems, is its art. The history of the subway is entwined with various art movements in NYC. Whether, because of the 1970’s and 80’s Graffiti movement or the artworks and performances officiated by Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), travelling by the subway is a journey with the most creative and competitive artists and musicians in the world.
  Most New Yorkers and some tourists know about the differences between the red and green lamps outside a subway station, or between the circle and rhombus shape around the train names, or trains that run on the same track in some neighborhoods. But there are couple of hidden gems of the subway, that are unknown to many New Yorkers. I will cover some of them in this essay. 

 The whispering gallery in Grand Central

In an underpass below Grand Central station, the arched walls allow the sound travel across the domed ceiling allowing two people to hear each other whisper when they stand at diagonal arches [2]. 
The old City Hall station
The City Hall subway stop on the 6 line closed in 1945 as it could not be modernized. We can sneak a glimpse of this station if we stay on the 6 train towards downtown after the last stop, as it passes through the station when it loops around to the uptown platform [2].

The three major types of artworks on subway
The cultural center of the western world, the big apple, New York City has been harboring millions of artists and various forms of artworks for many years. The art of NYC is like an ocean and in this book, we can only try to understand couple of drops of salty water from that ocean. We focus on three of the earliest forms of art here – painting, sculpture and music.  
Artwork: City Glow, 
Chiho Aoshima (2005)
Line: BMT Broadway Line
Location: 14th Street/Union Square 
Photo by: Robbie Rosenfeld [3] 

Artwork: Trains of Thought, 
Gardner/Heller.
Line: IND 6th Avenue Line
Location: Grand Street 
Photo by: Robbie Rosenfeld [3]  
The convoluted history of Graffiti art
In 1974, NYC was a city in crisis. Abe Beame, cut the city’s budget exceptionally to overcome the bankruptcy. But because of this a lot of school teachers, police officers, subway staffs lost their jobs. There were no outlets for the New Yorkers to protest against all the corruption. So, the city became their outlet, their canvas, their audience!
  First, someone just wrote his name, then someone else noticed it and added on to that. Soon, there were “letters going in front of letters, coming back through a letter, behind a letter, going across a letter… the subways became our playground”, as the subway artist Riff170 told in an interview to BBC [5].  That’s how graffiti art turned into an explosion, a movement.
  Graffiti writers came from all races – African American, Puerto Rican, Dominican, Cuban, Jewish, Asian etc. In 1977, there was huge power cut leading to blackout, loots and riots in the city. Abe Beame was replaced by Ed Koch who was determined to clean up the city. In 1983, David Gunn was hired as the president of NYC transit authority who launched a campaign to banish graffiti. Trains were taken out of service, cleaned as soon as any graffiti was spotted, carriages were protected at night behind the razor wire and the city banned selling spray cans to minors. In 1984, 80% of carriages were graffiti free. In 1989, MTA celebrated a graffiti free subway network.

TRACY 168, who began writing graffiti in the late sixties and invented wild style in the mid-seventies, painted this train in two minutes in 1974. Afterward, he added ink and whiteout to the photo [8].  

The United Graffiti Artists in 1973. From left, first row: COCO 144 and Hugo Martinez; second row: Rican 619, LEE 163, and Nova 1; third row: Rick 2, Ray-B 954, Cano 1, SJK 171, Snake 1, and Stay-High 149; fourth row (standing): Stitch I, Phase 2, Charmin 65, Bug 170 [8].

Painting

Losing my marbles
This glass mosaic masterpiece stretches across a 32-foot wall and two neighboring side walls in the 42nd St-Port Authority Bus Terminal station. Created by Lisa Dinhofer in 2003, it depicts a variety of toy marbles intended to stimulate the mind through illusions that manipulate physical perception [6].

Time square mural
This brightly colored masterpiece stretches 6-feet high and 53-feet long inside the entrance of 42nd Street and Broadway in the Time Square subway station.  Created by Roy Lichtenstein in 2002, the mural celebrates the history of New York City transit by featuring visionary images of masonry, machines and modernism [6].

Masstransiscope
This animated piece of artwork lines the walls of the acant Myrtle Ave station on the B/Q lines and can be seen from Manhattan-bound express trains as they depart from the DeKalb station platform. Created by Bill Brand in 1980, this mural was inspired by a zoetrope and consists of 228 panels that come alive to create a moving image we pass by on the train [6].

Sculpture

Life underground
These pint-sized people are scattered about the floors and strewn along the railings of the 14th Street subway station at 14th St and Eighth Avenue. Created by Tom Otterness in 2001, the cartoonish bronze sculptures depict various scenes that comically poke fun at notions of criminality and corruption in New York City [7].

Hive
This overhead art installation can be found on the ceiling of the Bleecker Street subway station underneath the streets of Soho. Created by Leo Villareal in 2012, this work of art resembles hexagonal honeycomb patterns of moving neon-colored lights that aim to explore the human brain’s compulsion to identify patterns and establish meaning. [6].

A gathering
These little bronze birds can be found sitting atop the metal railings along the mezzanine of the Canal St subway station in Chinatown. Created by Walter Martin and Paloma Muñoz in 2001, this installation features more than 180 sculptures of crows, grackles and blackbirds perched in groups to highlight the social similarities that exist between people and birds.[6].

Music
A selection of 60 soloists and groups performed in Grand Central Terminal on May 13, 2014 during the MTA’s 27th annual auditions for its Music Under New York program. The auditions were held to add new talent to the program, which is administered by MTA Arts for Transit & Urban Design (AFT) and presents more than 7,500 performances annually in the MTA’s subways and railroads. Photo: MTA Arts For Transit / Rob Wilson [9]. A video clip of 2012 Music under New York is available on youtube [10].

Epilogue
Year: Unknown
Place: Midtown Manhattan, NY, NY
Time: 5 PM
A group of tourists are waiting for the tickets at the Museum of Modern Art with their hands tucked in their pockets. They all are sweating with excitement! They know tonight they are visiting a world-class collection of a modern art movement from 70’s and 80’s. The long line moves. The tourists finally enter the galleries. They take their hands out. Each one of them is holding a camera. They start taking pictures. They need to be fast! The museum will only be open till 8 PM tonight! This whole gallery is dedicated to the graffiti art of New York City. They take pictures of graffiti done by Dondi, Lady Pink, Zephyr, Julio 204, Friendly Freddie, Moses 147, Snake 131 and many more. Finally, a museum docent politely reminds them that the museum will close in 30 minutes. The tourists hurry up. They chatter excitedly in a foreign language among themselves and walk towards the exit sign. One of them pose and take picture of herself. The museum staff smiles and mutters “Tourists!”. These tourists flew from another continent to watch the art created by the teenager artists of 70’s who were once referred to as “Vandals”!

Bibliography
1. New York City Subway
2. 18 hidden secrets in NYC by Kaylin Pound
4. Music Under New York (MUNY)
5. Great Art? The graffiti of the New York subway By Chris Summers
6. 8 Amazing Art Installations in NYC’s Subway Stations by Kaylin Pound
7. Life underground
8. Graffiti in its own words by Dimitri Ehrlich and Gregor Ehrlich
9. 2014 Music under New York auditions
10. 2012 Music under New York auditions

NYC dream: Biomedical research

Posted on by cancerartscinetwork
I have been writing this NYC dream blog for past couple of years now. I have written about my experiences in exploring the artistic and social side of New York City. But, I have been very cryptic about the scientific side of my favorite city. Last year, in one post I have mentioned that NYC is the second largest research grant receiving city in USA. This year, last month, I gave a hint that I have been working on some cancer-art collaboration projects. But, what’s really going on with my hardcore biomedical research? I think it is time to poke a hole in the shell of my INTJ persona and push in some of my ESFP persona in it.

The main focus of my research has been variability within and among tumor cells. It is important to understand the extent of the predictability of this variability for its consequence on personalized cures for cancer. There are certain well known genes whose alterations cause cancer. These are called as oncogenes (‘onco’ meaning ‘cancer’). I have been studying extensively the connection between these oncogenes and cellular signaling alterations in lung cancer.
In recent years, couple of terminologies flooded the literature describing research findings in cancer. For example, systems biology and heterogeneity. The study of complex systems is not new in mathematics and physics. But until the first decade of this century, biologists focused mostly on reductionist approaches to understand every little detail of the molecular mechanism of cells. However, it was evident while understanding a complex diseased cell (e.g. cancer cell), we may need to study it as a whole. The idea is that the whole is bigger than the sum of its parts. It became more essential as the studies on tumor microenvironment provided evidences on the importance considering tumor cells along with their stromal microenvironment. Unfortunately, the term systems biology has been overused in literature for past few years. Nonetheless, the cancer biologists understand the importance of system-level view of cancer. Hence, in recent years, animal model systems harboring patient derived tumor tissues gained more popularity than two dimensional cell line model systems.

As we have progressed towards more complicated model systems the second term that I mentioned became more and more daunting. Heterogeneity! It means the tumor cells are not only different from one patient to another (inter-tumor heterogeneity), but they can also be different even within one patient’s tumor (intra-tumor heterogeneity). Now, imagine a situation, where a patient has more than one type of tumor cells in his/her body. A single needle biopsy from one region of the tumor may diagnose only one type of cell. If a therapy is designed based on this diagnosis, the undiagnosed cells may escape the therapy causing relapse of tumor. There have been a lot of research efforts to understand the origin and extent of this heterogeneity in cancer.  

There have also been specific scientific conferences addressing systems biology and heterogeneity of cancer. One such meeting is organized by the Center for Cancer Systems Biology at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) at NYC. MSKCC is the second largest cancer research facility in USA (after MD Anderson Cancer Center at Texas). Hence, when I found out about this meeting, I immediately wanted to go. They had couple of travel fellowships to encourage attendance of PhD students and postdoc in this meeting. They call this fellowship as the young scientist award. I didn’t complain as it sounded better than a travel award. The review committee liked my abstract and I was one of the two awardees last year. As part of this travel award the awardee needs to deliver a short talk on his/her research. I prepared my talk well. The interdisciplinary attendees of the meeting liked my talk. That was a fascinating experience for me.
It is good to be appreciated and recognized for the hard work that we researchers put in everyday in the lab. In addition, it also opened new doors and windows in knowing intelligent scientists from various aspects of cancer research.
The question that interests me now is – is there a way to reeducate these cancer cells about the fact that the host body would be unable to contain them beyond certain limits?

NYC dream: A bit of NYC elsewhere – a luminous evening at Duncanville

Posted on by cancerartscinetwork
When I heard about the art show located at Cedar Hill, I had no idea that not only I would be able to travel to Cedar Hill from Dallas, but also, at 9 PM of a chilly night, I would be in a Tundra truck with a friend I made on the previous night at the train station, and would be visiting my artist friend and her filmmaker husband’s house at Duncanville that connects with the main road with a narrow track completely surrounded by dark, large trees, in front of a creek full of raccoons, to make up for the time before going to watch the late night show of a sci-fi film that I have never heard of!
In the above sentence, I wanted to bring in two things that are absent from an average scientist’s life – spontaneity and long sentences! In general, scientists enjoy extensive planning and following their plans. I even have some scientist friends who get pretty uncomfortable and sometime, even upset, if things don’t go according to their thoroughly thought-about plans. As a result, they miss the fun of unplanned adventures. Secondly, scientists are forbidden from the creative freedom of writing any sentence that has more than 17 words. The reasoning behind this is that most fellow scientist readers, even if they are native English speakers, don’t have the patience to read long sentences. As unfortunate as this situation could be, I don’t have to stick with any of these two eccentricities while writing my blog (or living my life)!
Now coming back to how this luminous experience came into being for me. I first met Dr. Anne Gordon Perry and her husband Tim Perry at the “Literary night” at AT&T performing arts center. From the very first day, Anne and I became friends. After hearing about my art-science interests, she invited me to audit her humanities class at the Art Institute at Dallas. This was an evening class and was perfect for me as it didn’t clash with my day work schedule in the lab. As part of the class, we learnt various movements of art throughout the history, important terminologies for all forms of art ranging from drawing, painting, photography, sculpture, architecture, music, literature, cinema, theatre and dance! We took field trips to Dallas museum of art, Nasher sculpture center and the Pocket sandwich theatre. We read interesting poetry and fictions, and watched and discussed very unique documentary and fiction films. I have never been to a class of 40 students each one with good handwriting! One day, in the humanities class, Anne told us about an art show where she was taking part by displaying some of her fused glass works. Unfortunately, this show was in Cedar Hill where I could not commute via public transport from Dallas. But something interesting happened that night, which not only allowed me to travel to Cedar Hill but also have a great experience. 

That night, after the class I was waiting for the light rail at the station. I saw another student from the humanities class. I didn’t remember his name. He was a tall, white man, with long brown hair and a smiling face. I went ahead and started a conversation. His name was Brad. I found out that we were waiting for the same train. We spoke about my work at the lab and his work at the studio. During the small chat, my portrait painter identity kicked in and I noticed he had a sharp, long, Caucasian nose, dreamy eyes and thin lips. He said that he was going to the art show next day and would be able to give me a ride as my apartment was on his way. So, there was my new friend and my ride to the art show.

We reached the art show in Brad’s Tundra truck at around 8 PM. Anne was surprised and delighted to see us. We met with Tim, Anne’s glass work teacher, her friends, fellow artists and enjoyed a variety of artworks at the show. Then suddenly, Anne came up with the plan of inviting us to join her and Tim to watch “Interstellar”. I had no idea what it was – another art show, a sculpture, a musical or dance performance, or a film! But, I figured if two world traveler filmmakers and artists like Tim and Anne are interested in watching something, it must be something good. Fortunately, Brad was excited to watch it too. We were also joined by another student from the art institute – Mike. As this “Interstellar” started late at night we had some time to spare at Anne and Tim’s house at Duncanville. On our way to their house, Brad filled me in that Interstellar was a sci-fi film. Following Tim and Anne’s car we reached their house.

We were greeted by two very stranger-friendly cats. The house showed that Tim and Anne have traveled to so many places around the world. The whole house was full with souvenirs and relics and artworks from many countries, religions and cultures! Tim showed us his drone that he used to take the overhead shots in his films. We watched a short silent documentary film that was shot outside the Bahai temple at Chicago with four segments depicting four seasons – winter, spring, summer and fall.

In the end, fed with crackers and hummus, warmed with almond tea, having taken a tour in Anne’s chaotic and creative studio, holding three stories written by Anne and a dvd of the Bahai film made by Tim and Anne called “Luminous journey”, I left with Brad to follow Anne, Tim and Mike to the theater playing Interstellar.

The film was good. But for me the interesting experience was something else. After the last scene of the film ended, the screen started showing the credits. Generally, everyone starts to get up and leaves during this time. But, Tim, Anne, Brad and Mike, all of them sat through the whole credit very respectfully and religiously. I realized people who are connected with the filmmaking process, have interests in understanding and knowing the process of making of the film as well as the end product. Anne and Tim kept pointing at the names of the people in the crew that were known to them. Brad and Mike were silent, but I could see that they were paying attention to the names of those people. After the film, we came outside, said bye to everyone. I hopped into Brad’s car. He dropped me at my apartment at 2:30 AM.
It was truly an illuminating experience!

NYC dream: how much space part 3 – to loft or not to loft!

Posted on by cancerartscinetwork
NYC apartments can be eccentric; full of strange angles, teeny tiny surface area, sometime unusually high ceiling, with big windows or little skylights. When I first heard the phrase “think vertical”, I have thought about bookcases, dividers, folded tables, cabinets, floating racks, wall lamps, magnetic spice containers, wine bottle hangers and even two storied closets. Only recently it occurred to me that I have missed the elephant in the room – the bed! The full bed (queen if you are lucky) takes the maximum amount of horizontal area in a teeny tiny studio apartment!
I was never a murphy-bed lover. After working at minimum two jobs (one pays your bills, the other is simply for fun), when I enter my apartment, there is nothing more welcoming than the sight of a cozy, comfortable bed with personalized pillows and a sexy painting hanging over the headboard. A murphy bed never does that unless you leave it unfolded, in which case the purpose of murphy-bed is lost. In addition, my apartment is my “sanctum sanctorum” and apart from my occasional dates, I don’t generally entertain a large group of people. In addition, if you are renting, not many owners would allow you to fix a murphy-bed on the wall. So, what are my other options?
Loft bed! Yes, if you have high ceilings, you can choose to raise the largest furniture you own and then utilize the space underneath for a table, couch, or both, a small walk-in closet, a reading nook, or even a dorm refrigerator or microwave.  However, there are couple of challenges that you need to overcome before being comfy in your lofty bed.
How to get down from the loft bed in the middle of the night with sleepy head and avoid breaking your neck by falling down the tiny staircase? The answer is- create your own custom staircase by the wall with storage boxes underneath. The cover of those storage boxes can be painted canvas (if you are into fine art like me) hanged with little hooks and nails. Also, keep a glass of water on the little wall rack by the bed.
How to not bump your head in the bedframe while using the area underneath? I think the answer is – practice makes the man (or the woman) perfect! First sit down and then slide in your couch. Try to find very low day beds which can serve multiple purposes. With couple of decorative side and back throw pillows, this will serve as a couch or day bed and can be used as a guest bed when required. Put the day bed longitudinally with the length of the loft bed, so that a part of the day bed sticks out. That will make the practice of sitting first and sliding in second- easier.

How to cope with panic attacks in the middle of the night waking up and seeing the ceiling so close to your nose (if you are claustrophobic)? Immediately, turn your head sideways and have the bird’s eye view of your beautifully decorated studio apartment. Breathe, then slowly come down the custom staircase. Relax. The sky is not falling down yet!