Image: Pollens Source: Dartmouth Electron Microscope Facility. Public Domain Release by Dartmouth College.

NanoArt21's digital gallery presentation of the 2008/09 submissions (curated by Cris Orfescu) is intellectually yet soulfully satisfying. The techniques, tools, and understanding of the underlying science have all been demonstrably enhanced and improved upon by the submitters, making this year's competition even better than the previous two.

Among my favourite entries is Frances Geesin's Six Hollows (" inspired by text and images of hollow nano capsules designed for drug release; formed by heat with thermoplastic material and electro-plated nickel").

Artists utilized the graphics painting programme MS Paint and -mostly- varying versions of the graphics editing software Adobe Photoshop. One contestant worked well with Adobe's earlier CS2 release (Creative Suite), but the CS3 Extended is available now. as is also the CS4 component, which allows one to -among other capabilities- paint directly onto 3D models, wrap 2D images aroud 3D shapes, add depth, etc. CS4 Extended has additional capacities for scientific and 3D imaging.

For me, the most successful works were those which didn't sacrifice the science of nano to the art of digital manipulation.

Winners will be announced after 31 March 2009.

http://www.nanoart21.org/

http://www.crisorfescu.com/