visual essay
My previous experiment has always been to study the impact of technology on people’s daily life, in this semester experiment, I still focus on this topic. The relationship between technology and mankind is a huge topic, and I hope to narrow my scope. When I made 100 screengrabs at the beginning, I used photography to show the image of magnetic field changes. I found that the electromagnetic waves of daily life can be used as my new direction of interest. It is invisible and intangible, but it exists in every aspect of our daily life. In my previous work, I have been trying to visualize this invisible electromagnetic wave, but I have found as the research progresses, I am more fascinated by the impact of the magnetic field on living bodies, enriching and imagining through the language of graphic design.
Many scientists have proposed that the treatment of crop seeds with an externally strengthened magnetic field can increase the growth of seedlings. For example, placing a magnet under the glass bottle of the plant will speed up the rooting speed. At the beginning, my initial idea was how to change the magnetic field environment around plants, so I thought of Oersted’s magnetoelectricity experiment, which changes the size of the magnetic field around plants by changing the current in the energized wire. Similarly, In 1868, Russian botanist Andrei Famintsyn was the first person to use artificial light for plant growth and research, Plant growth lamps are artificial light sources, usually electric light sources, designed to stimulate plant growth by emitting electromagnetic spectrum suitable for photosynthesis (Proc Natl Acad,1998). Also, I found that although weak magnetic fields can increase the growth rate of plants, when the magnetic field becomes larger, the shape of the plants will be distorted or directly lead to death, so I used graphic design to express this process, looking at the invisible magnetic field force from the growth and possibility of a bead plant.
In fact, during the whole process, my position has changed a lot. Since I didn’t know much about magnetic field at the beginning, the things I wanted to perform in the early stage of the project were also very limited. But with the in-depth research, I discovered the relationship between magnetic field and biology. Scientific experiments and materials gave me more inspiration and gave me more perspectives on magnetic fields. And in the whole process, I also found a lot of experiments by related artists, their attempts at technology and biology. I rethink the relationship between magnetic field and biology, how to increase the variables are very interesting points in this experiment, and it is also a point worthy of my continued exploration in the future. Previous scientific and biological knowledge appeared more in junior high school textbooks, but how to convert it into visual language and how to increase its transmission efficiency. What interests me more is how to reflect future experiments and imaginations in this field in my design. The magical magnetic field and biology have given me a lot of room to dream about the future. Many scientists have already raised the question of “whether humans can really induce gene mutations”. I think visual communication design can also participate in the guessing and prediction of future scientific topics.
Reference：
MASAFUMI MURAlI，TAKUYA ASAI. Primary root growth rate of Zea mays seedling grown in an alternating magnetic field of different frequencies，1998(44):271— 273.
LIN C T, YANG H Y, GUO H W, et al. Enhancement of blue-light sensitivity of Arabidopsis seedlings by a blue light receptor cryptochrome 2 [J]. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA, 1998, 95(5): 2686-2690.