Leah Heiss

I have just had confirmation that I have received a $10,000 Australia Council Visual Arts Grant to develop new jewellery based projects with Nanotechnology Victoria. This project has a really different focus to the Subtle Technologies residency as it is more focused on material exploration. Here is the meta-blurb (blog coming soon):

Material Poetic
In this project I will create jewellery from materials engineered at the nanoscale. As an artist I am interested in augmenting the emotional relationship between people and their cherished possessions through the agency of nanotechnology.

The intimate scale prototypes I will develop utilise materials that exist at the extremes of the poetic spectrum: Aerogel - which is 99.8% air; carbon nanotubes - one of the strongest materials on earth; shape change alloys - which manipulate form when warmed; and magnetic fluids - which change shape in the presence of a magnetic field. Thus the jewellery to be created will defy our understandings of matter and its expected behaviour. It will draw from and intensify ideas of delicacy, longevity, fragility and mutability which intimate jewellery often symbolises.

‘Material Poetic’ will build from an existing body of work that I have developed over the past 8 months as an artist in residency with Nanotechnology Victoria. This current project ‘Subtle Technologies’ has investigated imbuing jewellery with therapeutic applications. My residency has necessitated that I develop new modes of artistic practice. This innovation in tools and techiques will intensify through ‘Material Poetic’ as the materials I will be working with require a completely new arsenal of working methodologies.

Through this project I am seeking to develop a series of small scale artefacts for exhibition in addition to a broad range of less tangible outcomes: innovation in arts practice, new ways of engaging in arts/science
collaborations, the potential demystification of nanotechnologies, and innovation in technical and material processes.

I have just returned from the opening of the Refashioning the Fashion exhibition at Object gallery in Sydney. The opening coincided with How You Make It a show curated by Kate Rhodes + encompassing works by a range of contemporary fashion practices. The opening went well and the refashioning show was a really eclectic mix of work by offbeat jewellers (Tiffant Parbs, Julia de Ville etc).  Anyhow - here are some pics:

Here is a link to the residency website which is coming together, from here you can download a pdf that shows all the images: Subtle Technologies

At last - I can show the world some pics of the vessel I have been labouring over. After many attempts we have decided that this crazy form is too blobby and resembles a computer mouse too much to register. So - here are some pics. The latest vessel (top pics) is the SLA print that I had done at ARRK in Melbourne. The outcome is really beautiful though the process is costly.

The pics below are some of the works in process. These are plastic prints that show the range of variations I’ve been through. This one is known as the gourd:

Below is the stone model - an early prototype:

I have just realised that I am working for about $10 an hour! This is hilarious as you would get paid more cash in hand in a burger shop than that. Not that I’m complaining - after all 3 degrees and a lot of projects have brought me to this point. So, the point is that? Well - it’s art of course. It’s all for the love of art!

The projects are all galloping towards their completion in a completely insane way. I am currently surrounded by different types of glue, magnets, sticky tape, circuits and much electroluminescent cable. It’s really beautiful stuff though quite unforgiving. It won’t bend and won’t be superglued. So stage three is to recreate the circuits with thinner EL cable. It’s great stuff though not as bright + whiter in colour.

Photoshoot is this afternoon + tomorrow. The diabetes neckpiece is getting put together today by the engineers + will hopefully be functioning in time for the shoot. It will be great to get some really fabulous shots of this work - and even greater for it to be picked up by the courier next week to take to Sydney for the Object show.

The end is nigh -

Detail shot of part of the arsenic water vessel with EL cable behind

I am currently writing an abstract for the ArtsHealth conference at the University of Newcastle this October. Specifically I have been musing over the potential benefit to innovation through developing robust relations between artists and scientists. Within our context the collaboration has seen the art/science relationship expand from a reactive, representational model where the artist responds to pre-existing technologies, toward one which is focused on the simultaneous synergistic innovation. In this model the artist informs the development of the technologies from the outset and the scientists think more broadly about the human impact of their products prior to committing to particular directions.

Well - that’s what we are moving towards. Much of the project work I have been doing is working with existing technologies and developing ways to humanise their interfaces. Now, towards the end of this development we are starting to open up ways of creating new therapeutic technologies with a human-sensitive interface.

Well here are some pics of the latest Arsenic neckpiece that I picked up this morning. You can see here it in open and closed mode.

The arsenic water vessel is coming along well - although am not able to publish images until I register the designs. I have decided to get the vessels rapid prototyped in two different materials: an SLA print in a translucent off white and a SLS (stereolithography) in a clear that has a slight yellowish tinge.

I met with a collaborator recently who is advising on casting techniques for the vessels. We spoke about the possibility of doing the pieces as slip casts. In this way I could develop vessels in porcelain which would be fantastic in terms of the artefact’s sense of preciousness. The advantage of this process is that you can cast hollows without having to cut the model up. In order to cast in resin I would need to cup the body of the vessel as you could never remove the internal part of the mould through the mouthpiece. This requires gluing the pieces together + worrying about seam lines etc. This is why rapid prototyping opportunities are so attractive but also extremely costly.

The diabetes projects are also ramping up speed. Catapult Innovations are developing the internal mechanisms and I am prototyping the externals. We are hoping to have the elements finished by late May which is approaching faster than an out of control bullet train.

Here are some pics of the first generation Patch Rings. These ones are cast from the models I created early in 2007. The initial batch were printed in coloured rapid prototype plaster. The next phased with these is the develop a spring system so that once the MicroArray Patch is applied to the skin via the applicator below the ring will hold it in place with the appropriate pressure.

Well, we finally have design registration for the diabetes applicator project - being developed between myself, Nanotechnology Vic and Catapult Innovations. Following are some pics of the prototypes to date. I am also reworking the Patch rings which hold the MicroArray patch once it is adhered to the skin. For those who are out of the loop the MicroArray patches are small (10 x 2mm) circular discs which have an array of micro needles on their surface. They can be infused with insulin and replace syringes as the insulin can enter the body through the dermis. I have been working on a wearable applicator device - basically a necklace which allows you to administer the patches to the skin. I am also developing a series of rings which hold the patch in place.

The process of collaboration has been interesting as the engineers have a very different perspective on the development process. They are much more focused on a market-ready project whereas I am looking things more as a prototype. Materially we may proceed with a different metal rather than silver - we’ll see how we go.

Drawings of the Patch Applicator

Patch Applicator on the body

Patch Applicator early prototype

After 3 months of heavy pregnancy followed by new-baby-land I am finally back on board with my creative work. Well, in some capacity anyhow. The idea now is to focus on two primary projects: arsenic + diabetes. To recap:

Arsenic (nee carrying wellness):
This is a wearable piece and vessel for purifying water of arsenic. The neckpiece is a receptacle that carries mesoporous iron oxide which can remove arsenic from water.The vessel incorporates filtering devices and electroluminescent cable to provide illumination for the user when purifying water in darkness. The vessel and neckpiece are designed for people in transit in areas where arsenic is prevalent in found water (India, Bangladesh, United States).

Diabetes:
I am developing a series of rings which house Microarray patches - for delivering insulin to the body at a dermal level. These are the extension of the Patch Rings (see pic 29 September) that I developed last year with Nanovic last year. They will be cast silver and hopefully contain some shape change alloys. As part of this project I am also developing a wearable administering device which will allow the microneedles to penetrate the skin.

The projects will become part of the Refashioning the Fashion exhibition at Object Gallery in Sydney in late June.

Refashioning the Fashion: Jewellery to rebuild, recreate, restore, renovate, reassemble, remodel, refashion, revamp, recondition, reinact.

(Source: Object Gallery website)

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Since last writing I have had some work in the FUSE exhibition in Adelaide. The show, curated by the extremely talented Sean O’Connell, was a group of invited “artists and jewellers exploring self and society through diverse technologies” (official catalogue blurb). My project, Arrhythmia, is an interactive which mimics certain Arrhythmias or disturbances in the rhythm of the heartbeat. As the user holds the heart and taps into its unsettling rhythm one engenders feelings of concern for the object. When cradled in the hands the heart beats but when put down to rest it stops beating. See www.fuseexhibition.com for more information.

Photograph by Sean O’Connell

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At the mid point of my residency I am reflecting on the outcomes of the past 12 weeks. These have been investigated in some level of detail throughout this BLOG but I am starting to pull them together as part of my plan for the next part of the process. Following is a pic of one of the first fully constructed pieces from the residency - the Carrying Wellness Vessel.