2020 has been an unexpectedly tough year for everyone in the world. At the end of 2020, three other colleagues and I ( Dr. Robert Ohlendorf, Dr. Miriam Schwalm, and Dr. Souparno Ghosh from the Jasanoff group) came up with the idea of using biomaterials in the lab to light up the new year. We acknowledge the contributions from the agar plates, the PE50 tubes, the pipette tips, the 96-well plates, the GFP bacteria colonies, and the millions of luciferase-expressing HEK cells. Click on the video, turn on the audio, and enjoy it! -NaN@2020

Among many strategies to bring the worlds of art and science together, one of them is to present subjects of our daily life from a different perspective using scientific tools or materials, which is the key idea behind this project. What kind of Christmas tree will you have if you grow it in a bioengineering laboratory instead of the natural forest? Here is my recipe: LEDs and a simple electronic circuits board controlling the lights, recycled 384-well plates as leaves or light diffusers, 10 ml pipettes as tree skeletons. -NaN@2019

The fifth dimension, an addition to the familiar four dimensions of space and time, refers to the way people connect with each other using electronic devices. The video projection, manipulated through prisms and mirrors, visualizes digital energy flow that is all around us and transcends the limitations of ordinary space and time. My idea for this installation was inspired by poet Robert Bly and by the original Centerbeam in the 1970s (led by Otto Piene, who worked with MIT scientists and engineers) as “pipelines of elements and energies”. This work is part of the " Energy Lines" project exhibition of Center for Art, Science and Technology of MIT, MIT museum studio, and mentored by Seth D Riskin. -NaN@2018