Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/leon_a_01610 byguest on 30 September 2021

ABSTRACT the ongoing development and exclusivity of new technolo- new of exclusivity anddevelopment ongoing the in interested all thus are alike industries and governments scientists, Artists, measure. anticounterfeiting necessary a is effects complexproducingvisual forrequiredknow-how and secure. In this context, restricted access to the technical identify,legitimate visually to means a as objects other and labels product cards, credit passports, in use for developed technologies like next-generation holographs or UV inks are forauthentication. used those suchas There,devices, visual strates, especially in the sector interested in the production of sub - and techniques image-makingcutting-edge for search continuousa is there example,industry,for security the In fields. other to extends also color over control this but [2], tiously claimed some of these for personal and exclusive use conten- cases some in have Artists effect. visual forphysics metamaterial pushing the establisheda laws of andchemistry of example one is [1], Vantablack as known be to come color.making and ,”“blackest of The what has or manipulating of ways new with alike artists and scientists providingis nanoscale materials the design abilityThe at to ofthings. or theconvergenceofmediatingfunctionsatsurface reproducibility, matters, itconcludeswithaspeculationoninformatic to mediumthatisanchoredaroundquestionsofremediationand production ofimages.Buildingadiscussionontheshiftfromdevice explaining howtheprinciplesofstructuralcolorcanbeusedfor the convergenceofvisualtechnologiesanddesignedmaterialsby nanoscale interactionsoflightandmatter. Thepaperarticulates practicesconcerning as authenticationdevicesandtootherartistic applicationofnano-opticalimages as holographs),totheprimary Lyall. Itsituatestheworkinrelation tootheropticaltechnologies(such at theCiberLabinVancouver ChristineDavisandScott andtheartists produced incollaborationbetweentheauthor, engineeringscientists ofnano-opticalimage-making providesatechnicaloverview This article Nano-Optical Image-Making l a r e n e g ©2020 ISAST with thisissue. See www.mitpressjournals.org/toc/leon/53/2 forsupplementalfilesassociated Email: [email protected]. Web: www.aleksandrakaminska.com. Communication, PO Box 6128, Downtown Station, Montreal, QC H3C 3J7 Canada. Aleksandra Kaminska (researcher), Université de Montréal, Department of Morphologies, Devices, Speculations Devices, Morphologies, k e l A https://doi.org/10.1162/leon_a_01610 A e l c i t r N A S d A R

S N I M A k

k a structural colorstructural [5]. of the wing—its form—that color is produced. This iscalled morphology the through is It structure: from but pigment are in themselves transparent and colorthe comes not from wings the that is revealed study morphological nanoscale a as the shimmering blue wing of the morpho butterfly. What such iridescence, biological is scale this at studied was that construction the of matter itselfOneofphenomena [4]. the see toability the came scale molecular the intoreach could its of perception. With the development of microscopes that ture and the shape of things gradually emerged from the lim struc form, microscopes, like devices optical Through [3]. not previouslycould it what see to eye human the allowing advance refinedwithevery been in optical technology,each has been well documented how these structural studies have studies since at least Robert Hooke’s other life-forms that have been the product of morphological to the now-familiar detailed drawings of plants, animals and entific interest in shapes functionstheirand has notably led tain branches of linguistics and biology. The outcome of asci with forms and structures and is most frequently used in cer Morphology (from the Greek O M burgeoning optical medium. a as described be could that something of prototypes tive specula and samples material both in resulting materials, designed and technologies visual ofconvergence the in ize we have been developing nano-optical images that material- of light, color and material throughout their career. Together studiesworkingon been has whom ofLyall, Scotteach and Vancouver,UniversityDavis in Christine artists with along Jiang and Bozena Kaminska at the Ciber Lab at Simon Fraser Haowith collaborativedevelopedinstigated andinitiative I offocus a activity. this This area of research was exploredcurrently ina nanoscale the at work with image, the of gies r or Because of the way the light diffracts in the billions of billions the in diffracts light the way the of Because g anic ph o l / o D g e si i e g s

n LEONARDO, Vol. 53, No.2,pp.167–173, 2020 o ed N ed f

ano morphé, or form) is concerned -Op tics Micrographia in 1665. It - - - - - 167 nano-sized structures that constitute the wing of the mor- In the business of authentication technologies, optical pho butterfly, it generally appears blue to the human eye. nano-images are called nano-optical variable devices (nano- In movement (i.e. when angles between structures, light OVDs), with colors and variability (morphing, iridescence) and eye shift), the points of contact tune in and out and the becoming ever-more precise and defined thanks to the on- color shimmers, or iridesces. The fact that the appearance going improvements in nanoscale engineering in designing is generally blue is significant, as is the implication that the specific shapes and forms [11]. OVDs, which include the term morpho refers to an idea of changing forms: morphing, common holograph, are characterized by their changeability, metamorphosis, etc. In the morpho butterfly, this applies not or iridescent visual effects, which tune in and out of focus as to a literal restructuring of the wing but to the variability they are tilted and placed under different light conditions. or instability in the color that is perceived, that is, in the However, holographs and nano-OVDs are produced using a iridescent quality of the blue. This iridescence—a mutabil- different technical principle: whereas holographs are based ity of perceived color—is the product of the fluid interac- on the recording, or inscription, of a whole image on a holo- tion between the environment (light) and angles of sight, or graphic film (substrate) with reflected laser light, the nano- “viewing geometry” [6]. Such iridescence exists only to the OVD’s visual effect comes from the structural forms of the extent of our ability to see it [7]. substrate itself. This is significant insofar as the scientific goal The study of iridescence is the study of optics, or “the long of nano-optical image research is not primarily to produce history of humanity’s struggle to control light” [8]. The mor- 3D representations (which is also a possibility) but rather to pho butterfly’s iridescent wing has served as an oft-referenced produce high-resolution images that can be seen accurately inspiration for nano-optical researchers. Engineering scien- under the widest-possible viewing angles, in effect working tists, extrapolating from the morphology of the wing, began to limit its color variability and improve brightness (color designing materials with specific nano-sized structures to intensity). The search for widest viewing angle and high reso- imitate the hole-based system of the butterfly to produce a lution is the search for a reliable form of representation and variety of colors through shifting forms and shapes. The re- reproduction, something more akin to a multipurpose film sulting substrates—what Giuliana Bruno might refer to as the that is used in analog cameras than to ambitions of producing “fabric of the visual” [9]—use nano-sized slits or holes that 3D representations. are designed to produce specific material encounters with The primary application of nano-OVDs has been as an light that generate precise “optical effects.” Because of these anticounterfeit device for documents, joining a lineage that nanoscale dimensions, light behaves and interacts not merely includes practices of microphotography and security print- as a beam or ray but rather through its constitutive parts— ing. The typical way of producing nano-OVDs for such use wavelengths, photons. As light hits the surface of this pixelated is through renewals of familiar techniques—lithography, canvas, it diffracts, refracts, reflects and transmits selectively embossing, stamping. First, a master of a wanted image (the so that the human eye sees certain colors at certain angles. “original”) is fabricated in a nickel stamp (using nanolithog- A number of artists have experimented with nano-optics raphy), which is then replicated through roll-to-roll emboss- in their work. has claimed exclusive rights to ing in a colorless polymer/plastic [12]. The optical image is Vantablack, but other artists have also worked to produce structurally integrated into the material: The color from each near-absolute , such as Stuart Semple with his Black hole of the nanosubstrate is a direct outcome of the stamping 2.0 (2017), or Frederik de Wilde in his series Hostage ­(2010–), process. This technique means that to reproduce is to make a where black “grows” through the cultivation of carbon copy of a combined material-image each time. nanotubes. Kate Nichols meanwhile is producing iridescent While OVDs are in general difficult to reproduce (and thus nano-optical pigments using silver , showcased forge) because of their technical complexity, nano-OVDs for example in Doppelganger (2013), among other ongoing made in this way face specific challenges. First is a restriction works. Where the work in our collaboration differs, however, concerning the volume of production. To produce a nickel is that we are not producing pigment but surface: a canvas stamp requires significant investment of time, labor and re- that uses the logic of a system of holes, as in the butterfly sources—too much in fact to produce for one-off images and wing, for the making of color. Artists who have explored this small quantities. It therefore only makes sense to produce approach include Kimsooja in A Needle Woman: Galaxy was images that need to be copied many times over: The image a Memory, Earth is a Souvenir (2014), a tower structure made is thus made for and in anticipation of its reproduction. Sec- with a nano-optical polymer that shimmered in the sun, or ond is the limitation of size. Working in nano dimensions Julian Melchiorri, who used organic nano-optical materials adds the challenge of scale, with images produced through for Cocoon (2014), a prism-like structure made of silk protein work that is meticulous and painstaking. Accordingly, the that functions as a diffracted-light sculpture [10]. Whether machines and infrastructures of production all use equip- in the production of pigment or the exploitation of surface, ment designed to handle small dimensions. Bearing these these examples showcase a production of color but not of circumstances in mind, while it has become relatively com- images with precise detail or definition. This kind of extreme monplace to produce large quantities of small generic images control over nano-optical effects has for now largely been the (e.g. stars in a passport), producing many singular images in domain of the security industry and the production of visual limited quantities or in large format has been impractical, if authentication devices. not infeasible, using this method.

168 Kaminska, Nano-Optical Image-Making

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/leon_a_01610 by guest on 30 September 2021 My collaboration with the Ciber Lab was spurred by its re- ries—red, green, blue—and a coating system (in these cases, cent efforts to overcome these limitations of volume and size black-and-white) for modulating the colors as desired. These by finding ways to fabricate images more efficiently. While technical aspects of production and reproduction offer ways they had been working on the production of nano-OVDs of situating the materials and processes of the nano image in since 2007 [13], they were now developing techniques that the broader trajectories—genealogical or archaeological— could potentially expand the applications of nano-optical of visual, information and media technologies, whether in image-making. The novelty they proposed was to move from such traditions as, for instance, the miniaturization of in- a process of fabrication that structurally bound image and formation (e.g. microphotography) or the encoding of in- material to one that divided the material and the process. formation through a system of grooves, pits and holes (e.g. This would open the door to producing both small batches punched card systems or optical discs). Moreover, recalling and larger images. Their two-step approach involves: (1) the the security-centered original applications of OVDs also production of a generic pixelated nanosubstrate and (2) the suggests another kind of possible archaeology, one in which accompanying processes for adding information onto/into it. media-making revolves around a search for controlled repro- Together these make up the lab’s central scientific contribu- ducibility or, put differently, a high level ofir reproducibility, tions to the retooling of the processes used for the production telling the story of visual technologies designed so as to not of nano-optical images and structures. be copied (and forged). First is the nanosubstrate, which is made up of approxi- mately one billion nanostructures in a square centime- Re/production ter. These nano-holes or gratings, called nano-hole arrays The first outcome of the Ciber Lab collaboration was a proj- (NHAs), are produced using varying techniques, such as ect with artist Christine Davis. Davis, who has spent her ca- electron beam lithography (EBL) or focused ion beam (FIB) reer exploring the fabrics and surfaces of the visual, had a milling. Importantly, this system of NHAs is designed as a few years prior also been inspired by the properties of the pixelated pattern using three (red-green-blue) or four (in- morpho butterfly’s wings and producedWho’s Afraid of Red, frared—IR—for invisible, or covert, information) subpixels. Yellow, and Blue (2008), a work in which she projected fil- These are determined by the particular size and shape of the tered light onto the morpho’s wings to display not the famil- nanostructure so that, in the case of the information in the iar iridescent blue but distinct color patterns (Fig. 1). The visible spectrum, the designated color can be seen at a spe- wings became a surface for projection, a display of Davis’s cific viewing angle. Resolution meanwhile is defined based longstanding attention to the materiality and haptic nature on the size and density of the NHAs and can differ according of the screen. to the design of the pixelation pattern (e.g. bands) and the This interest, along with her background in analog materials used. In principle, a variety of materials, including photography, meant Davis brought with her a significant metals, polymers, paper, tissue/fabric or glass, can be pix- knowledge of optics, specifically of the material qualities elated in such a way and then coated, through a process of of image-­making via light-to-surface interaction. At the metallization with silver, aluminum or gold, to brighten the time, I was also the managing editor of the Canadian arts colors (making use of the particular interactions of light with periodical PUBLIC: Art Culture Ideas, and we decided that metal, or plasmonics). our first project would be to produce a nano-optical cover Such a nano-optical substrate is not limited to the produc- for an upcoming anniversary issue. Since the journal prints tion of red, green, blue or infrared (covert) data. The idea of a generic pixelated canvas is that it can function much like an LCD screen: Here however, rather than being electrically activated, the pixels can be tuned through various mechani- cal or chemical processes to produce specific colors across the visible spectrum [14] (Color Plate B). The various meth- ods for tuning the substrate—inscription, etching, exposing, writing, layering, molding, stamping, etc.—remediate the processes and logics of analog modes of image-making onto a new material, each coming with particular production or reproduction dis/advantages, and each resulting in a different quality of image. For example, inkjet printing on the RGB nanosubstrate with molded (embedded or injected) silver ink makes possible any of 9,261 different colors for each pixel [15]. The analogy to the LCD screen is just one of the many ways that nano-optical image-making can be mapped onto the technical histories of art and media production. Old- fashioned processes like Dufay color film or autochromes, for instance, use a similar image-making principle that re- Fig. 1. Christine Davis, Who’s Afraid of Red, Yellow, and Blue, 2008. lies on a pixelated pattern made up of the additive prima- (© Christine Davis)

Kaminska, Nano-Optical Image-Making 169

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/leon_a_01610 by guest on 30 September 2021 Fig. 2. Test of final design of journal cover with nano-optical stars manually Fig. 3. Scott Lyall, Untitled (Redshift), unframed lab copy, nanoscale features superimposed, 2014. (© Ciber Lab. Photo © Aleksandra Kaminska.) on aluminum-coated polymer printed using UV lithography, 3 × 2.5 in, 2015. (© Scott Lyall. Courtesy of the Ciber Lab. Photo © Aleksandra Kaminska.)

1,000 copies of each issue, this meant that what we were em- Gallery in New York, in which he included a trilogy of what barking on what was not only an aesthetic exploration of he described as “nanofoil etchings.” These hung amid pieces new visual fabrics but also a considerable (considering the from his Black Glass series of large-scale “paintings” [17] that, university setting) ­scaling-up of a still-embryonic, even ar- though they predated and were not part of the nano-optical tisanal, technique. Davis designed the image of the cover as research, were also studies in light, color and material. Each a somber forest, with nano-optical stars iridescing from the of those works was a subtle variation of black that physi- dark. Jiang converted her digital files for the stars using their cally and conceptually deconstructed the art-historical dis- in-house software to produce a photomask that would create ciplines of painting and photography through the movement the equivalent colors on the nanosubstrate. Along the way, a of bouncing electrons within and across layers of worked- number of choices had to be made regarding exact processes upon materials (glass, inks, printed colors). As a context, they and assembly, materials, coating, lamination, etc. Since we helped situate the nano works as extensions of such physical were under a fixed schedule (the work began in Fall 2013 and and material explorations. Not seen at the right angle, the the issue was to launch in October 2014), the plans for a cover nano-etchings could at first appear as seemingly unremark- eventually shifted to the production of an insert to limit the able silver foils: thin and smooth, like fine sheets of alumi- challenges of integrating the nano-optical substrate with the num marked with black contoured shapes. But, when the printing of the journal itself [16] (Fig. 2). angles between eye, ray of light and material were just right, Our second undertaking removed itself from the expecta- colors appeared, iridescent images emerging at and from the tions of reproduction. Scott Lyall (who had joined the team surface. Each piece was individually handmade, each the toward the end of the PUBLIC project) used images of galax- bearer of unique marks from the making process and each, ies to create nano-optical works as sites for thinking about through the technique of the frame, offering a reflection on the capture and rendering of light, indexical relationships the emergence of the new through a reference to the histories and the digitization and rematerialization of light as it moves of the technical image. Reminiscent of daguerreotypes and across scales. These translations between light itself (stars), displayed like early photographs, with large white frames and converted into digital image and then remade into an op- mats and behind glass, the nano works were presented in a tical fabric, probed the ability to capture, present, render, manner that suggested their distinctiveness not just as im- represent and back again. The technique that was chosen ages but as material visual objects (Figs 3 and 4). to produce these works was a microscale photomask that This second phase of artistic collaboration was not a quest contained an image that was etched onto (“activated”) the for reproducibility, as it was for PUBLIC, but rather a con- pixelated substrate using UV lithography. cern for the nano-optical image as historical, theoretical and The first results of this work were 3-×-4-in pieces (very speculative artifact. In this, Lyall strived to reassert an auratic large for nano-optical images) that were shown as part of a dimension to the nano-optical image, creating a situation gallery show Lyall had in the fall of 2015 at the Miguel Abreu that would foster the kind of looking and attention neces-

170 Kaminska, Nano-Optical Image-Making

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/leon_a_01610 by guest on 30 September 2021 as still specimens, devices and sample materials with “a po- tential—for further making, growth, and transformation,” a moment before becoming fixed and recognized as forms, media and objects [20]—before reproducibility. The PUBLIC project was in part driven by the idea of having nano-optical images circulate in ways untied to their function as authentication devices. This desire led us to the making of copies, in order to showcase the prototypical (even accessible) possibilities of the methods developed by the Lab. If a technological prototype is defined as an original artifact that will eventually be copied, it is thus also a “moment” of reproducibility that shifts visual technologies from the singu- lar or unique specimen to the possibilities of multiplicity. In other words, the prototype works toward and implies a future in which it is “scaled-up,” or reproducible. In this the proto- type is distinct from simulations, proofs-of-concept, samples, conceptual models or even experimental artifacts, none of which is innately bound to questions of reproducibility. As anthropologist Suzanne Küchler explains in her discussion of prototypes in twentieth-century art, the difference between a conceptual model and a prototype, for example, is that the Fig. 4. Scott Lyall, Untitled (Redshift), nano-etching using UV lithography on former “makes apparent the logic underlying the capacity aluminum-coated polymer, 3.625 × 2.6875 in; framed 23.5 × 16.5 in, 2015. As presented in the Miguel Abreu Gallery exhibition. (© Scott Lyall. to generate self-similar images,” which the latter “realizes Photo: Thomas Müller. Courtesy of the artist and Miguel Abreu Gallery.) through its serial replication” [21]. It is not that other models could not be prototypical, but that they are not necessarily so, or not yet. sary to see the novelty of the material. While the two-step In response, Lyall’s nano-optical images proposed not the method theoretically allowed for scaling up (and has since resolution of manufacturing concerns but the speculations much improved), the focus on reproduction in the PUBLIC that come from a set of possible outcomes, a concern with the project led to a series of manufacturing challenges that ulti- novel (singular) rather than a leap into the generic (copy). As mately overshadowed this initial phase of speculation. Lyall’s “philosophical prototype” [22], they function as “boundary works in this sense took a step back and reverted to an ex- objects,” “poetic experiments,” “things that talk,” “performa- ploratory phase, probing the object-ness of the material it- tive artefacts,” or generally “inscriptive objects . . . that hold self as a crucial moment in a yet-to-be-defined technological within various biographical, techno-scientific and cultural specimen [18]. Presenting the nano-optical works as a trilogy lines of flight” [23]. In other words, they propose possibilities highlighted, as the media scholar Sean Cubitt might say, “the of what could be without attachment to resolving the matter contingency of their existence” [19], that is, their existence of how (Fig. 5).

Fig. 5. Scott Lyall, (Untitled) Redshift, nanoscale features on aluminum-coated polymer, printed by the Ciber Lab using UV lithography, 3 × 2.5 in, framed 18 × 15.5 in, 2016. (© Scott Lyall. Photo: Toni Hafkenscheid. Courtesy of Susan Hobbs Gallery Toronto.)

Kaminska, Nano-Optical Image-Making 171

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/leon_a_01610 by guest on 30 September 2021 Functional Speculations storage systems. Because they harness the properties of light, Because nano-optical images have been usually referred to nano-optical images are not merely, or necessarily, devices as optical variable devices or as authentication devices, they or passive pictures, but rather—as the optical device also have been defined by their function (a device is for some- becomes carrier, storage and processor of covert (IR-stored thing)—either their iridescent quality or their dominant ap- data) information—examples of “molecular structures built plication. These functional names confirm the well-trodden specifically to act as communication devices” [25]. Although difficulty of articulating the new: As new media that “we do the IR pixel was not yet mobilized in these projects, opti- not yet know how to talk about,” nano-optical images are cal “images” (including holographs) have a dual capacity as “definitional puzzles” defined most of all by uncertainty [24]. technology of both vision and information, so that optical As the Lab’s techniques of “addition” developed or shifted, the materials exceed their device-ness when they are activated terms for describing the nano-optical device, image and tech- and their functions expanded, when they move from instru- nology did too: nanographs, nanophotos, nanoprints, nano- ment (of vision, of security) to a multifunctional (“multime- film, nano-etchings. The legacy of the analog underscores dia”) system. These “smart” materials, when reaching into the the material process of adding an image to a substrate but is minute scales of the nano, create the possibility of surface not necessarily suggestive of the possibilities of nano-optical and engineered structure becoming one, a convergence of materials. This ambiguity is significant because it contains medial possibilities in the granularity of structural material within it a reflection on the nature of designed materials as design. In this way, technical access to the nano affords un- supports of new image and surface conditions. precedented abilities for transforming the surface of things Research on nano-optics is, like optical research more into “informatic matter” [26]. A pixelated substrate, as being generally, a good example of a timeless material concern developed by the Ciber Lab, can thus be imagined as a ge- crisscrossing disciplinary boundaries. The many subfields of neric membrane-like RGB-IR exoskeleton that envelops the optics examine and harness the physical properties and en- material world in a functional canvas or screen that supports ergy of light to understand and develop technical ways for us a future of ubiquitously computed and interconnected things to see and communicate; to process, store, sense and transmit [27]. This convergence of mediating functions in material information. The history of information technologies could design describes not only a nano device but, perhaps, eventu- indeed be told through continuous technical improvements ally, a nano-optical medium [28]. in controlling light, from image-making processes to optical

References and Notes Butterfly Mirrors,” Applied Optics 30 (1991) pp. 3492–3500; J.P. Vi- gneron et. al., “Reverse Color Sequence in the Diffraction of White 1 S.P. Theocharous, E. Theocharous and J.H. Lehman, “The Evaluation Light by the Wing of the Male ButterflyPierella luna (Nymphalidae: of the Performance of Two Pyroelectric Detectors with Vertically Satyrinae),” Physical Review E 82, No. 2, 021903 (2010). Aligned Multi-Walled Coatings,” Infrared Phys- ics & Technology 55, No. 4, 299–305 (2012); Sarah Cascone, “Behold 6 Stéphanie M. Doucet and Melissa G. Meadows, “Iridescence: A the New Vantablack 2.0, the Art Material So Black It Eats Lasers Functional Perspective,” Journal of the Royal Society, Interface 6, and Flattens Reality,” Artnet News (29 March 2017): www.news Supplement 2, S115–S132 (2009). .artnet.com/art-world/new-photos-vantablack-906158 (accessed 1 May 2017). 7 Jungim Song, “The Poetics of Spotting Rainbows,” Performance Re- search 20, No. 1, 27–35 (2015). 2 Claire Voon, “Anish Kapoor Gets Exclusive Rights to the World’s Darkest Pigment,” Hyperallergic (29 February 2016): http://hyper 8 Sean Cubitt, The Practice of Light (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2015) allergic.com/279243/anish-kapoor-gets-exclusive-rights-to-the p. 1. -worlds-darkest-pigment (accessed 1 March 2016); Kevin Holmes, 9 Giuliana Bruno, Surface: Matters of Aesthetics, Materiality, and Media “The World’s ‘Mattest, Flattest Black’ Acrylic Paint Is Available to (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014) p. 3; italic in original. All—Except Anish Kapoor,” Creators (31 March 2017): https://cre ators.vice.com/en_us/article/mattest-flattest-black-acrylic-paint 10 For a more in-depth analysis of some of these works, see Aleksandra -anish-kapoor (accessed 1 May 2017). Kaminska, “Seeing Nano: Vision, Optics, and the Sight of Impossible Things,”Media-N, Journal of the New Media Caucus (Summer 2015). 3 For studies in microscopy in particular, see e.g. Julia Schickore’s The Microscope and the Eye: A History of Reflections, 1740–1860 (Chi- 11 Karthik Kumar et al., “Printing Color at the Optical Diffraction cago: University of Chicago Press, 2007) or Catherine Wilson’s The Limit,” Nature 7, No. 9, 557–561 (2012). Invisible World: Early Modern Philosophy and the Invention of the Microscope (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1997). 12 Yindar Chuo et al., “Rapid Fabrication of Nano-Structured Quartz Stamps,” Nanotechnology 24, No. 5(8), 055304 (2013). 4 Microscope of course is a misnomer when dealing with the na- noscale. Tools like the scanning electronic microscope or atomic 13 Bozena Kaminska and Clinton K. Landrock, Security Document force microscope offer not optical images but rather images pro- with Electroactive Polymer Power Source and Nano Optical Display, duced through the visual reconstruction of a haptic scan. See for ex- WO Patent 2,010,121,362 (2010). ample Colin Milburn, Nanovision: Engineering the Future (Durham, NC: Duke Univ. Press, 2008); Chris Robinson, “The Role of Images 14 T.W. Ebbesen et al., “Extraordinary Optical Transmission through and Art in Nanotechnology,” Leonardo 45, No. 5, 455–460 (2012). Sub-Wavelength Hole Arrays,” Nature 391, No. 6668, 667–669 (1998); Ting Xu et al., “Plasmonic Nanoresonators for High-Resolution 5 As opposed to color based on pigments. See H. Ghiradella, “Light Color Filtering,” Nature Communications 1, No. 59 (2010); Hao Ji- and Color on the Wing: Architecture and Development of Iridescent ang, Reza Qarehbaghi and Bozena Kaminska, “Nano-media: New

172 Kaminska, Nano-Optical Image-Making

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/leon_a_01610 by guest on 30 September 2021 Nano-Photofabric for Rapid Imprinting of Color Images and Covert ley’s Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, 1907–39,” Social Studies of Data Storage,” Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Science 19, No. 3, 387–420 (1989); Kera [22]; Lorraine Daston, ed., Nanotechnology (IEEE-NANO 2014) (Toronto: 18–21 August 2014). Things That Talk: Object Lessons from Art and Science (New York: Zone Books, 2004); Lucy Suchman, Randall Trigg and Jeanette 15 Mohamad Rezaei, Hao Jiang and Bozena Kaminska, “Rapid Origi- Blomberg, “Working Artefacts: Ethnomethods of the Prototype,” nation of Image Master Stamps and Production of Color Imageries British Journal of Sociology 53, No. 2, 163–179 (2002); Alberto Corsín from Prefabricated Generic Stamps,” Nanotechnology IOP Science 27, Jiménez, “Introduction: The Prototype: More than Many and Less No. 8 (28 January 2016); H. Jiang et. al., “Molding Inkjetted Silver than One,” Journal of Cultural Economy 7, No. 4 (2014) p. 383. on Nanostructured Surfaces for High-Throughput Structural Color Printing,” ACS Nano 10, No. 11, 10544–10554 (2016). 24 Benjamin Peters, “And Lead Us Not into Thinking the New Is New: A Bibliographic Case for New Media History,” New Media & Society 16 For a detailed description of this project, see Aleksandra Kaminska, 11, No. 1–2, 13–30 (2009). “Designing Nano-Media across Disciplines: Circular Genealogies and Collaborative Methodologies at the Optical Frontier,” Proceed- 25 Renata Lemos Morais, “The Hybrid Breeding of Nanomedia,” M/C ings of the 21st International Symposium on Electronic Arts (ISEA2015) Journal 17, No. 5 (2014): www.journal.media-culture.org.au/index (Vancouver: 14–19 August 2015). .php/mcjournal/article/view/877. 17 Miguel Abreu Gallery (New York), Black Glass (12 September–25 Oc- 26 Daniel Black, “An Aesthetics of the Invisible: Nanotechnology tober 2015). A fourth work was displayed at the Susan Hobbs Gallery, and Informatic Matter,” Theory, Culture & Society 31, No. 1, 99–121 Toronto, as part of a curated group show in Fall 2016. The works have (2014). This would be an example of what Nigel Thrift describes as also since been exhibited in the shows Dragons at Campoli Presti a new form of “screenness,” in which the structures of the image are Paris (Fall 2017) and Campoli Presti London (Winter 2017), as well brought to the surface: Nigel Thrift, “Beyond Mediation: Three New as Superstar at Miguel Abreu Gallery (Spring 2019). Material Registers and Their Consequences,” in Daniel Miller, ed., Materiality (Durham, NC: Duke Univ. Press, 2005) p. 246. 18 Susanne Küchler and Peter Oakley, “New Materials and Their Im- pact on the Material World,” in Penny Harvey et al., eds., Objects 27 Other kinds of screens using , including active ones and Materials: A Routledge Companion (London: Routledge, 2014) (which require powering), are being developed. See for example: pp. 82–91. Brett Smith, “Touchscreen Computers on Any Surface,” AZoNano (12 April 2017): www.azonano.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=4461 (ac- 19 Cubitt [8] p. 9. cessed 2 May 2017); Kelly et al., “All-Printed Thin-Film Transistors 20 Tim Ingold, “Toward an Ecology of Materials,” Annual Review of from Networks of Liquid-Exfoliated Nanosheets,” Science 356, No. Anthropology 41 (2012) pp. 427–442. 6333, 69–73 (April 2017). 21 Susanne Küchler, “The Prototype in 20th-Century Art,”Visual Com- 28 Nano-verses.com is an online iteration of this collaboration that aims munication 9, No. 3, 301–312 (2010) p. 304. to synthesize the different aspects of the project in a way accessible to a diverse public: www.nano-verses.com. 22 Denisa Kera, “On Prototypes: Should We Eat Mao’s Pear, Sail Saint- Exupéry’s Boat, Drink with Heidegger’s Pitcher or Use Nietzsche’s Hammer to Respond to the Crisis?” in Vincent W.J. van Gerben Oei, Manuscript received 8 May 2017. Adam Staley and Nico Jenkins, eds., Pedagogies of Disaster (Brook- lyn, NY: Punctum, 2013) pp. 423–455. Aleksandra Kaminska is an assistant professor in the 23 Susan Star and James Griesemer, “Institutional Ecology, ‘Transla- Department of Communication at the Université de Montréal, tions’ and Boundary Objects: Amateurs and Professionals in Berke- Canada.

Kaminska, Nano-Optical Image-Making 173

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/leon_a_01610 by guest on 30 September 2021 b plate

color Color Plate B: Nano-Optical Image-Making: Morphologies, Devices, Speculations

Sample of nano-optical image produced using Ciber Lab’s two-step method and tilted at different angles, 2016. The image size is 4 × 4 in. The nanostructured surface of the image has been metalized with 30nm aluminum thin film. (© Ciber Lab. Photos © Aleksandra Kaminska.) (See article in this issue by Aleksandra Kaminska.)

196

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/leon_a_01610 by guest on 30 September 2021