“A work will only have deep resonance if the kind of darkness I can generate is something that is resident in me already.” Anish Kapoor


We live in a technological society, in a new Renaissance period, and there is no reason for the arts to stay away from technology. Nanotechnology is widely considered to be the basis of the next technological revolution. It is within this fairly new scientific field that inspiration may lie for the arts, ready to be unfold and be researched (in the same way as the theory of relativity inspired artists as Picasso and Braque to create cubism).
Nano art is the expression of the new technological revolution and reflects the transition from science to art using technology. Nano art is generally considered as a new art discipline related to micro-/nano-sculptures created by artists/scientists through chemical/physical processes and/or natural micro-/nano-structures viewed through powerful research tools such as the scanning electron microscope and the atomic-force microscope.
Working with nanotechnology as an artist is a statement, because by definition, the infinite can neither be revealed nor consumed. Nano art offers a non-vision.
The importance of my artistic proposition is to bring nano art to a visible (macroscopic) domain and contextualize it within the rich history of painting (e.g. Baroque painter Caravaggio and his famous chiaroscuro effect, Kazimir Malevich’s black squares, Ad Reinhardt, Mark Rothko, etc.).


Developing the darkest painting (material) in the world

My proposal is to develop the darkest (and largest) nano [1] -engineered painting in the world. This novel material will be the reference for black in the same way as the atomic clock is for time. The super-dark material, a thin coating comprised of low-density arrays of loosely vertically aligned carbon nanotubes, absorbs more than 99.9 percent of light while minimizing reflection.
In order to pursue this sublime ideal and go beyond the liminal (e.g. the current threshold of black), I will research and use anti-sublime strategies, using scientific tools and methodologies, and introduce them into my artistic praxis. The current idea is to make the scale bigger, in order to create a truly immersive experience for the spectator, hence questioning how the art work relates to space.
Secondly, I want to explore the meta qualities of the artwork (e.g. the way in which way the artwork can function as some kind of photovoltaic system, harvesting light and rendering it into electricity). For this I will need to interface the artwork with heat and light sensors. In essence the sensors will pick up data, which could for instance trigger a light source. This set up would create a perfect feedback loop between the artwork and the light source. My final aim is to construct a (sensory) experience hovering between vision and non-vision, artistic, scientific and metaphysical worlds.
The title "Hostage" refers to the fact that no light can escape from the painting and that it captures all light at all wavelengths.


Notes

[1] Nano derives from the Latin word for dwarf. One nanometer is one billionth or 10-9 of a meter. One micron = 1000 nanometers. One nanometer is about the diameter of three to six atoms (depending on the element) or 1/100,000th of the width of a single human hair.
A rough definition of nanotechnology could be: “the design, characterization, production and application of (novel) materials, (novel) devices and systems (that have unique properties) by controlling shape and size of the nanoscale”.

The project is made in close collaboration with Rice University, Houston, Texas, USA. This specific collaboration echoes, for example, the collaboration of the French artist Yves Klein and chemists to create his famous “International Klein Blue” (IKB). A first small prototype (70mm x 70mm) premiered in January 2010 at the MediaRuimte in Brussels. Concept: Frederik De Wilde. Fabrication of nano material: Nanomaterials Laboratory at Rice University, Houston, USA, Prof. P. M. Ajayan, Dr. Lijie Ci and Daniel Hashim. Special thanks: Ars Electronica, SMARTbe, the Flemish Ministry of Culture and the University Hasselt.

Frederik De Wilde (BE), born 1975, studied fine arts (MA), audiovisual arts (MA) and followed a preliminary education in architecture, studied one year of philosophy and concluded his studies with a post-graduate degree in new media, arts & design at Transmedia (post-graduate) where he learned software programming. Frederik works on the interface between art, science and technology, with strong interests in ecology, physics and social innovation. His work has been exhibited worldwide at festivals and has received several awards. Currently Frederik is collaborating with LAb[au], Q-02, The University Hasselt (BE), Carnegie Mellon University (US), Rice University (US), Karlsruhe University (DE), University Leiden (NE) and Rochester University (US).