'Intimate Circuits' - an artistic window into Africa's scientific excellence

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'Intimate Circuits' - an artistic window into Africa's scientific excellence

By Dr Garth Cambray

This article is a review of the exhibition, 'Intimate Circuits' by Tammy Griffin, a South African artist. The exhibition was at the Joao Ferreira Gallery in Cape Town.

From ancient times, and increasingly rapidly in the present, science has produced millions of new substances and materials which can add beauty to the world if used in art. Plastic materials have in the past 200 years revolutionised the material palette of the artist. In this article we look at how Tammy Griffin, has used some novel materials to produce an exhibition entitled 'Intimate circuits' which speaks to the artist and scientist in everyone.

The series of artworks, named 'Intimate circuits' consist of a number of oil paintings, which have then had light emitting diodes (LED's) wired into them. The LED's are controlled by a series of computerised controllers designed and fitted by technologist Brian Kemp. The oil paintings and LED's are then covered over with a number of different plastics and resins.

The effect of watching the artworks slowly light sections in different colours in never to be repeated patters is akin to watching a fire on a cave floor - except this is multicoloured - one knows one is watching something you will never see in exactly the same configuration again - and it allows one to both watch the art and think deeply about things in much the same way as when staring into a fire. Fire and light and colour have been controlled by some of the greatest inventions, and watching these artworks flicker and change their colours brings home just how far we have come since when watching a fire on a cave floor was a state of the art way of spending an evening wrapped up in intimate reflections - now we have 'Intimate circuits'.

There are many articles written about what goes into creating the art in an exhibition. But what does one use to harness the talent of the artist to make the art possible? To answer this question, Tammy Griffin provided us with the following materials list that she wove together to create 'Intimate circuits'.

Canvas, wood, paper, pencils, charcoal, gold, lead, brass, copper, iron, stainless steel, glass, mirrors, turpentine, paraffin oil and paraffin wax, thinners, polycarbonate plastic, polyurethane varnish, polyurethane varnish, enamel paint, acrylic pain, fluorescent acrylic paint, high gloss enamel, catalyst hardened resin, epoxy glue, light emitting diodes, circuit boards, electrical solder (alloy), resistors, capacitors, integrated circuits, polypropylene plastic, transistors, transformers, electronic boxes to house components, electric cables and wall plugs.

Looking through the component list, you will see that the artworks first 17 components were available before the last century. The remaining 30 or so components have only been available ranging from 1900 - 1980's.

There is insufficient space in this magazine to explain how every component that makes up 'Intimate circuits' is made, so we will focus on some that are of relevance to southern Africa specifically those in which South Africa are leading manufacturers.

Paraffin oil and paraffin wax.

Paraffins are a group of alkane hydrocarbons characterised by their high weight. The basic structure of a paraffin consists of a backbone of carbon molecules with hydrogen molecules bonded to each side. Below are two simple alkanes.

1 carbon = methane

3 carbon = propane

Hence a paraffin would look exactly like the above simple alkanes, just a lot longer.

In South Africa, the bulk microcrystalline paraffin wax available, is supplied by Sasol Wax using the Fischer-Tropsch products as starting materials. By-products of the oil refining systems used by SASOL produce slack wax - a mixture of oil and wax. To turn this slack wax into a marketable product it must be de-oiled. The extent to which the wax is de-oiled determines its grade. The initial ingredients in the Fischer-Tropsch process - oxygen, steam and coal, are used to produce high molecular weight alkanes through Fischer Tropsch (FT) synthesis.

Liquid paraffins have not spent as long in the Fischer Tropsch synthesis reactors, and as a result have shorter carbon backbones and hence lower melting points.

Polypropylene.

The basic structural unit of polypropylene is propylene.

Propylene

Polypropylene

In much the same way that paraffin consists of a carbon backbone with hydrogens attached to it, polypropylene consists of a string of simple molecules known as propylene. When polymerised, in the presence of catalysts, the carbons in the centre of the molecule bonds to one of the carbons in the next molecule thus forming a chain of repeating units of propylene. The type of catalyst used will control how the propylene units bind to each other so that the methyl (CH₃) groups are either all on one side of the chain or on different sides. So using different catalysts it is possible to make polypropylene with different physical properties.

In South Africa Sasol produces about 220 000 tons of polypropylene per annum using Fischer Tropsch synthesis products as starting materials. Production is scheduled to increase this year with the commissioning of an additional plant in Secunda.

Metals such as gold and copper.

The standard, ancient methods of extracting these metals are well known and many articles are available on the internet explaining the basics of refining metals. Traditional techniques involve crushing rocks, heating, electrolysis, reduction and many other heavy industrial processes. Biomining is a newer addition to the toolkit in this regard, and an area where Africa, and specifically South Africa and Ghana are world leaders.

Biomining refers to two processes, both of which are resultant from the presence of bacteria.

Bioleaching refers to the process whereby the effects of bacterial metabolism in ore results in metals which were insoluble being converted to soluble forms which can then be withdrawn in water and extracted. This is used to extract copper.

Biooxidation is the term used to refer to the action of microbial metabolism on sulphur compounds in rocks. In many cases, such as the extraction of gold from sulphide gold ores, the sulphides inhibit the gold from leaving the ore. By exposing the ore to bioxidation, the sulphides are dissolved by bacterial action and this frees the gold up to be extracted conventionally.

Ashanti-Golfields, one of the mining giants of Africa, uses the BIOXr process where bye Thiobacillus ferrooxidans, Thiobacillus thiooxidans and Leptospirillum ferroxidans bacteria are mixed into a stirred slurry of gold ore. The ore is aerated and heated to 45° C after which the reaction begins - the bacterial metabolic rate is so high that they generate excess heat, so after start-up, the reactors must be cooled.

Although the above species of bacteria are not photosynthetic, they are able to use the chemical energy in sulphides to drive their metabolism and require carbon dioxide, just like plants do, so that they can synthesize sugars and complex cellular components.

A substantial proportion of the gold produced in Africa is produced using these technologies. The beauty in adapting natural processes such as this to produce products is that the effluents produced are often much easier to dispose of. In this way, our mining industries are using state of the art industrial biotechnological processes to produce clean gold.

So, by peaking under the bonnet of Tammy Griffin's 'Intimate Circuits' exhibition, we see that she has used her creative talent to turn some of Africas greatest scientific industrial products into something that everybody can look at and say 'wow, that is beautiful' and it means something intimate to me. That is the beauty of art - it adds meaning to the products of science, and that is the bond that polymerises our planets cultures together to achieve greatness.

More information:

About her art, Tammi Grifin says, "My paintings are abstract versions of realistic portraits, private associations, self-invented marks, words and maps of energy. For this exhibition I added moving light to my palette to animate the works ˆ oils, mixed media and electronics on canvas. I scratched, pierced, sculpted, painted, hammered, soldered, cut, poured, touched and calculated. I have used 500 LEDs, 1500 meters of wire, as well as 20 microprocessors to drive the lights. The result is full of texture, movement, music and rhythm. In the end, meditative and restful." The work was made possible through a grant from the National Arts Council. http://www.nac.org.za

Tammy Griffin may be contacted at tammyegriffin@gmail.com

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