NanoArt International Online Competition

As nanotechnology emerges as an eminent research field and omnipresent vogue term, the NanoArt International Online Competition is yet another sign of the technology's significance in the broader societal and even artistic context. The annual online competition promotes a certain kind of so-called nanoart, consisting of creatively manipulated research images turned into artwork, thus bestowed with an additional aesthetic value. Participation of the competition is open to artists as well as scientists.

The NanoArt International Online Competition encourages the creative manipulation of initially monochromatic research data of the micro- and the nanoscale collected by research tools, such as scanning electron microscopes. The research-generated images are then digitally altered through color and structural enhancements, thus beautified by the participating artist or scientist. In order to display them outside the Internet, the images are printed onto canvas or other materials. This manipulation of the original images is essential for turning them into works of art with primarily aesthetic value. Creativity and fictitious elements are a vital part of these images referred to as nanoart. The original microscopy images to be artistically modified are provided by the contest's organizers; scientists and artists, however, can also take part with their own research images. The competition aims at spreading knowledge about nanotechnology through the proliferation of images of the nanoworld.

The founder of the competition and the corresponding Website is artist Cris Orfescu, who has been working in the field of nanotechnology and nanoart for several years. The first call for participation was launched in 2006, resulting in the first online exhibition of selected works in 2007, and later that year in the first International Festival of NanoArt in Kotka, Finland. The same sequence—from announcement to the online exhibition and finally the real-world exhibition—has been upheld ever since. Awardees were either nominated by vote of the online public or by elected judges.

The NanoArt International Online Competition is proof of the enormous importance of images in the interdisciplinary field of nanotechnology. Images as a constituitive part of the research process can display an original quality, oftentimes described as aesthetic or beautiful, intensified by using common digital manipulations such as shading and color. The Competition focuses on nanoart as solely image-oriented art. Therefore, it does not include contributions from other media-based art, such as installation art, interactive design, or videos, which can generally be subsumed [Page 452]under the term of nanoart. Starting out with authentic data obtained through imaging methods by microscopes is thus an indispensable part of nanoart, as understood by founder Cris Orfescu. A predominantly positive understanding of nanotechnology's future impact underlies the competition, which is based on the belief that the circulation of strongly manipulated research images can foster a growing public awareness of the technology's possibilities.