Alan Rorie is a neuroscientist by training. These days, however, you’re more likely to find him using an MIG (metal-inert gas) [...]]]> Almost Science, Always Art

BY LESLIE W. CHINN

Alan Rorie is a neuroscientist by training. These days, however, you’re more likely to find him using an MIG (metal-inert gas) welder to send sparks skimming over a cool slab of metal than peering at glowing monkey neurons through a microscope.

From Neurons to the Neuron Chamber

Not too many years ago, Rorie was a graduate student at Stanford University, investigating the amalgamation of different types of information in the cortexes of macaques during the decision-making process.

Now, Rorie amalgamates metals (and sometimes other materials) into works of art in a process that he calls “almost scientific.” This is also the name of the science and art collaborative that Rorie founded, as well as the name of his website, www.almostscientific.com. The goal of Almost Scientific, the collaborative, is to “educate scientists about art and artists about science” through the creation of art pieces that tend to be quite large, with moving parts.

Rorie always has been intrigued by moving parts— as a child, he says he was “really interested in taking stereos and blenders apart and putting them back together.”  He also loved to read and write stories, which eventually led him to study the humanities in college. But, Rorie began to feel that the true source of being able to understand and appreciate the humanities was rooted biologically, in the brain. “What makes a great painting or symphony really has to do with how you perceive it,” says Rorie, “so I became very interested in the neuroscience of perception.”

By the time Rorie discovered that neuroscience wasn’t yet able to explain how the brain experiences art, he had nonetheless become intrigued. “I was already hooked on just understanding the brain and how it works,” he remembers. To this end, Rorie did a stint at the National Institute of Mental Health, then moved to California for graduate school.

Slowly, however, Rorie began to see that his future was not at the bench. It took a while for him to decide that he wanted to focus on, as he puts it, “art and creative pursuits.” Arriving at this conclusion wasn’t easy, particularly because everyone, including himself, thought of Rorie as a scientist.

The Process of Creation

In his studio in West Oakland, Calif., Rorie creates works with fantastical names: the Raygun Gothic Rocketship, the Triaparator and the Neuron Chamber. This last work is an “electro-kinetic sculpture” that demonstrates what neurons are and what they do. And, yes, it uses electricity: 9,000 volts make for an impressive action potential as they arc, a blinding blue light, down axons made of metal.

Rorie not only is interested in teaching nonscientists about neurons— he also would  like them to understand the mechanical workings of the Neuron Chamber. “In the sense [that] I can teach either the scientific content of my sculpture or the physical mechanics of it,” he says, “I am happy to do that.”

Rorie appears to derive a great deal of satisfaction from the design and construction of his work. Because many of his pieces are large and have moving parts, he makes use of engineering techniques— for example, CAD (computer-aided design) programs during the planning process— as well as tools intended for more industrial purposes, such as the MIG welder.

“A lot of the really large-scale pieces that I work on require a tremendous amount of engineering,” says Rorie, “and that is a huge part of the challenge and the fun and the beauty of these pieces.” He seems to revel in the process of creation, or as he puts it, “figuring out how to take something crazy and make it real.” This also is part of the message of Rorie’s works— to inspire people with the way he has taken a material as strong and rigid as metal and molded it to represent something as delicate as a human neuron.

As in science experiments, meticulous planning in art only goes so far. Nothing ever comes out the way you planned it, Rorie says, so you always have to be ready to adapt to the reality of the work. “At a certain point, you stop telling the work what it’s going to be,” he explains, “and it starts telling you what it is.” But, unlike many scientists, for whom the ultimate thrill is seeing their work published, the excitement is over for Rorie once a piece is done. “It’s more the process that’s important to me— it’s more the thrill of doing than the thrill the final product brings.”

Action, Reaction

Science and art may seem to exist in separate spheres, but Rorie believes that ultimately, they’re both about communication. It’s the direction in which the two are communicating  that’s different, much like a reaction that can run in two different directions. The way Rorie sees it, scientists generate conceptual abstractions to explain physical phenomena, whereas artists generate physical embodiments of their abstract ideas, thoughts or knowledge. The Neuron Chamber was an experiment in this concept for Rorie: He wanted to take his knowledge of neuroscience and communicate it via a sculpture of “high-voltage, robotic neurons in an alien observation tank.”

So, was the experiment successful? Paul Doherty, founding director of the Center for Teaching and Learning at the Exploratorium in San Francisco, thinks so. He watched people interact with Rorie’s Neuron Chamber while it was installed at the museum. “As the visitors figured out what was happening, they could predict aloud what the spark would do next, then laugh if they were correct, or moan if they were not,” Doherty recalls. “[They] had been drawn into the world of sparks and neuron modeling.”

Rorie often creates pieces that move, light up, or spew sparks or steam. He does this not only because he enjoys the engineering challenge but also because it makes the art more “alive.” Kinetic art has “action and reaction to the world around it,” Rorie says. “It gets touched and moved; it wears down.” In a way, the moveable aspect of Rorie’s art is a continuation of the bidirectional communication experiment. Moving parts encourage people to interact with the art, which means that Rorie’s pieces sometimes wear out or break. He doesn’t mind— in fact, he likes to fix them because it gives him something to do at gallery shows.

“The Path Is That Simple”

For bench scientists who yearn for the freedom of arc welding, Rorie has this advice: find something you love and do it, and soon you’ll get to be it. He expands upon this in two parts. The first is that there isn’t necessarily a formal process for every step of one’s career. “You don’t need to apply,” he says. “If you want be a carpenter, you just go and be a carpenter. The path is that simple.”

The most difficult step may be overcoming one’s self-identification as a scientist, as it was for Rorie. So here’s the second part of his advice, which is more of a pep talk for those who don’t view proficiency with a confocal microscope as a skill that can be translated to another line of work: “Your education as a scientist is deeper and stronger than just the field in which you work.” Rorie notes that while he doesn’t do science anymore, he uses the skills that he learned as a graduate student every day.

Besides, says Rorie, as a scientist, “you are on the cutting edge of knowledge— so why can’t you do anything else that you imagine doing?”

]]> http://www.almostscientific.com/blog/2010/06/30/almost-science-always-art/feed/ 0 http://www.almostscientific.com/blog/2009/10/02/the-triaparator-and-the-dihemispheric-chronaether-agitator-at-the-sonoma-county-museum/ http://www.almostscientific.com/blog/2009/10/02/the-triaparator-and-the-dihemispheric-chronaether-agitator-at-the-sonoma-county-museum/#comments Fri, 02 Oct 2009 09:04:55 +0000 Alan http://www.almostscientific.com/blog/?p=1418 Tonight I went to the opening of “Envisioning the World: The First Printed Maps 1472-1700,” at the Sonoma County Museum, which featured The Triaparator and The Dihemispheric Chronaether Agitator.

The show was really great.  The maps are really stunning in their history and beauty.  It was a real honor to have my work shown beside such [...]]]> Tonight I went to the opening of “Envisioning the World: The First Printed Maps 1472-1700,” at the Sonoma County Museum, which featured The Triaparator and The Dihemispheric Chronaether Agitator.

The show was really great.  The maps are really stunning in their history and beauty.  It was a real honor to have my work shown beside such amazing objects.   On of the maps on display was the oldest know map of the world, a T and O style map by Guntherus Ziner, Augsburg, 1472.  You can see a photo of it in the sideshow below.  It was really amazing to have two of my sculptures displayed beside such historic jem.

The show runs until Jan 17, 2010, and if you’re into cartography (or my work) it’s worth a visit.

Also below is a little video of my fried Barbara operating The Triaparator.

They incorporate The Triaparator into a little information section on the role of astrology in cartography.

Tom give a nice interview about his steam-powered scooter.

While none of the interview of Me or Sean is shown (I think we might have been a bit too snarky at 7am) [...]]]> Last week NBC news interviewed Me, Sean O, Tom Sepe and Oliver Lowe (of ReSearch, who is working on a book about Steampunk) about steam-stuff.

Tom give a nice interview about his steam-powered scooter.

While none of the interview of Me or Sean is shown (I think we might have been a bit too snarky at 7am) there is some great video of the Dihemispheric Chronaether Agitator and the Triaparator and the Treehouse.

Check it out (sorry for the ad):

You can see his whole gallery from the show here.

Photographer Michael Rauner took some cool photos of some of my work (The Triaparator, The Dihemispheric Chronaether Agitator and The Neuron Chamber) at the Fire Arts show. He also as some great shots of the Steampunk Treehouse and KSW.

You can see his whole gallery from the show here.

Below are some of the photos of my stuff:

I’m still recovering from finishing and showing The Neuron Chamber and will have the final round of photos form it up soon!

Meredith Scheff — Mon, 07/14/2008 – 15:05

(image: Alan [...]]]> I’m honored to have been featured in this interview by the fantastic Meredith Scheff for The Steampunk Workshop.

I’m still recovering from finishing and showing The Neuron Chamber and will have the final round of photos form it up soon!

Portrait of a mad scientist: Alan Rorie of Almostscientific.com

(image: Alan Rorie working on the Dihemispheric Chronaether Agitator. Photo by Flickr user and KSW patron Great!steam)

I’ve never been so enamored with any character type as I have with the mad scientist. The shop, filled with inventions, doo-dads; explosions from nowhere send machinery flying while (s)he runs yelling equations to no-one. The wide-eyed ecstatic expression of pure insanity; the giant eyebrows. The filthy white lab coat. The giant gloves.
With the exception of the gloves (and possibly the eyebrows), Alan Rorie is that taken from the best of these characters and put into rusty reality. A doctorate student at Stanford, he goes from the precision and white sterile walls of the laboratory to his grimy, rusty, enchantingly-cluttered shop at the west Oakland group art space NIMBY.
I met him first working on the Steampunk Treehouse , and have been since always impressed with his work; firstly the Dihemispheric Chronaether Agitator; and then the Neuron chamber. His exploits, scientific, artistic,  and otherwise- can be followed on his site  Almostscientific.com

He recently was so patient and kind to put down the high-voltage regulators and tell me a bit about himself.  Lots of photos and the interview behind the cut.

So, mad scientist/creator/artist, eh?

That’s what they say around the playground.

But, yeah, scientist, artist I’d say I’m a bit of both at various times; sometimes more of one then the other — usually not that one that is most appropriate or helpful to the situation.

It’s funny because in my lab (where I’m working on my graduate thesis) I’m the crazy artist guy, with the bad haircut, who hangs in gigantic, industrial-arts warehouses with all the strange, tattooed people; and goes to parties where shopping carts are crushed between giant steam-engine driven gears.   But when I’m at those parties watching my friends crush a shopping cart between giant stem-engine driven gears (something I don’t advise you kids at home to do — by the by) I’m known as the geeked-out, precision-oriented, Stanford scientist with the bad haircut, who spends his days doing experiments and writing computer code to process data.

What interests you in the art and science worlds, and how do they connect for you? (image: blades of the Triaparator)

Well my core interest in science is Neurobiology, the field I’m completing my Ph.D. thesis in down at Stanford.  So, yeah, obviously I’m interested in my thesis work on how sensory and reward information are dynamically combined in the brain (blah blah blah).  But beyond that I think there is allot going on in science that is mind-blowing.

I’m really fascinated right now by Astrobiology, which is the study of biology in the context of cosmology — life on other planets kinda stuff.  The discovery that there are living organisms in some of the most extreme environments on our planet (like the high-pressure, incredibly hot, pitch-black depths of the ocean and the ice-cold, low pressure, low oxygen heights of the stratosphere) and that biological fundamental molecules are produced in nebulae has really changed how we think about life on this planet and the potential for life on other planets.

I’m excited to see what the Phoenix lander turns up on Mars — I lost my keys at a party on the martin polar cap in 2002, hopefully they’ll show up when the Phoenix starts digging.

In the art world I’m excited by how technology is changing what and how we create.

I think the impact of the internet on the arts is just beginning to be felt.  And I’m not even talking about using the internet as a medium (thought that’s got some dope potential).  I’m just thinking in terms of communicating aesthetic ideas.

If I was making art twenty years ago it’s likely very few people saw it, unless I was lucky enough to live in a cultural epicenter (and connected enough to be part of their art world).  Today, I can take my own fantastic photos, make my own video and show people what I’m creating.  Text alone does not communicate the visual arts well — but now, with the internet, it’s not “hey let me tell you what I’m doing,” it’s “let me show you.”

Additionally, the internet is fantastic for picking up new techniques and method.  Websites like this, where artist share their methods are fantastic.  Sharing methods is something I try to do with my blog.  I post about all the nitty gritty of how I make stuff.

I’m also curious to see what happens as CNC fabrication and rapid prototyping technologies become cheep enough for allot of artists to really start playing with them.

Art and science connect in a very specific way in my life. Art and creation are something that, in retrospect, had always been a major component of my life but that I had never fully embraced until recently.

I was one of those oddball arts kids in high-school but was too much of a hell raiser to every apply myself to anything other then trouble.  Then in collage I became fully engrossed with science.  But really it was art that brought me to science.  Very early on in collage I was doing an independent study and I was writing a paper about the Dutch painter Modrian.  I wanted to interpret one of his paintings (Broadway Boogie Woogie) from neuropsycholgical perspective.  But I knew nothing about the visual system of the brain so I started to study it and that spawned an almost fourteen year Emerson in neuroscience.

But, around my fourth year of working on my Ph.D. I discovered that science, at the end of the day, left me very unsatisfied.

To me science is largely about taking concrete aspects of the world and abstracting so that they can be communicated.  I would spend weeks and months working on my thesis and the result would be some bit of data that only existed on the computer and in the mind of my peers.  I realized that I need to create real objects, things and stuff that existed in the world.  Art, to me, is the flip side of science; it’s about taking the abstract ideas that exists in you mind and communicating them by instantiating them in the real world as solid objects.

So I taught myself how to weld.

What was the first thing you built? (image- the Triaparator)

One of the fist things I really remember designing and building myself was a model-rocket engine gun when I was — geeze, 12?  I don’t recall if anyone got hurt — so I thin it was a success.

The first serious work of art I ever produced was the Triaparator, a series of three, fully functional, aperture windows for the Steampunk Treehouse.

What prompted your getting involved with Steampunk Treehouse? (image: one of the workstations in Alan’s shop with remnants or beginnings of various projects)

Have you meet Sean Orlando (who is the project director) — he’s rock-star hot.  One look at him and I was in.

Ahhh, yeah, well.  Really, it was the people that were involved.  The project was based in NIMBY, the same industrial arts space where my shop is and it was a metal working project so I natural gravitated towards it.  But very early on it stopped being about the project and became about working with the people that were assembled around it.  They are nifty, creative, mega-fun folks who laughed when I thought I was saying something funny rather then look disappointedly at me and asked me to leave.

How did you go about designing and creating the Triaparator?

I bought the plans off eBay for $2.65 and paid a kid down the block $10 to fabricate it.

No, I had two apertures, one from a camera and another from a theater light, that I reverse engineered and then modeled on the computer.  Originally I was just going to make one aperture window but once I had figured out how they worked and had built a CAD model it became easy to scale it to any size — so I made three.  The real challenge was figuring out how to fabricate the pins that blades pivot on for three different size apertures.

My favorite thing about that piece is that an old friend (I hate you Lee) refers to them as sphincters.  Which, is technically a good description of them given that the pupillary sphincter controls the iris of the eye, which is an aperture — but that’s not why he calls them that.

In the mad-frantic workspace like NIMBY, how the hell do you get anything done? (image: Alan in his shop at NIMBY)

Carefully and never cleanly.

Do you criss-cross your arts and your sciences to make well-designed but “affront to humanity” type cyborg or evil android super weapons?
(image: the Dihemispheric Chronaether Agitator)
After I graduate collage I spent two years living down in DC doing research for the government  — all that work is very hush-hush and I’m not permitted to discuss it at all.

But I built a series of cyborg, miniature schnauzers with the capacity to communicate by yodeling punk rock song; they could also launch gherkins from their anus at supersonic velocities as a defensive measure.

I also weaponized two of the English vowels.

Neither project got beyond the beta stage of field-testing and two of the schnauzers are AWOL somewhere in Switzerland.  Schnauzers are vindictive and never forget — Sometimes I fear for my safety.

What do you have planned for the future? (image: detail of the Dihemispheric Chronaether Agitator)

If all goes according to plans (HA!) I should be starting a new project, The Neuron Chamber.  You the reader can follow its fabrication over the next month over at my blog.  And when that’s done I’m going to finish my Ph.D. thesis.

How is The Neuron Chamber related to your research? (image: The Triaparator being built)

The Neuron Chamber is an interactive, electric-kinetic sculpture of a neuron in an observation chamber.  It’s thematically related to my research in that I do study neurons but the ones I study are really super tiny and much softer.

I’m very interested in using my art to communicate complex scientific concepts to people.

Scientists spend allot of time interacting with the world when they study it and they develop a set of intuitions that guide their research and help them come to a deep abstract understanding of the world.  Almost always, it’s the final abstract understanding that is communicated to the non-scientific public.  I want to create interactive, aesthetic environments that help build up the same intuitions that scientists develop.  That way, when someone reads about some new scientific finding that have a physical experience that can support their understanding.

Advice for aspiring Doc Browns? (image: detail of parts of the DCA)

1- Always wear pants in the lab and shop — even if you think no one is coming over.
2- Own a dog and have regular chats with him/her — dogs know stuff about things.
3- Have a good set of files on hand — the first machinist was a dude with vice and file.
4- Stop talking about what could or might happen and do the experiment — you never really know.
5- Don’t force it — use a bigger hammer.

I just got back from taking apart the Steampunk Treehouse in LA and found a note in my inbox from some good friends directing me to this cool photo and blurb in Wired.

The blurb is similar to the other write up they did of the the The Dihemishperic Chronaether Agitator.

Check out the write up of Almost Scientific and the Dihemispheric Chronaether Agitator in Wired:

Mad Labber Scientist Tinkers With Time

Stanford grad student [...]]]> Wow. I just got back from Maker Faire and had a fantastic time. So many cool projects and brilliant people walking around. A glorious geek fest!

Check out the write up of Almost Scientific and the Dihemispheric Chronaether Agitator in Wired:

Mad Labber Scientist Tinkers With Time

Stanford grad student Alan Rorie shows off his hand-built, steam-powered time machine.

SAN MATEO, California — In-between conducting lab experiments as a Ph.D candidate for a degree in neurobiology at Stanford, Alan Rorie builds time machines.

Of course, Rorie’s machines don’t actually bend the laws of physics, but he credits his creations with helping to pass the time and “keeping [him] sane.” His steampunky time machine, or “dihemispheric chronaether agitator,” as he calls it, was handcrafted over the last few months, in his down time between research.

Rorie, who studies neuroeconomics (or the mechanics of how we make decisions) at Stanford, builds all of his own scientific apparatus to run experimental trials — everything from sensor-equipped headsets to eye-movement tracking devices.

“In my lab, we have our own custom machine shop,” said Rorie. “So I play around and build art in my spare time.”

Created out of copper, sheets of steel and nitric-acid etched brass plates, the sculpture is hooked to a steam engine with a steam boiler to power its movement.

I just spent the evening in the shop shining it up and tweaking the gears.

I don’t think I’ll run it on steam power but I’ll have the steamengine there for show and [...]]]> It’s true, my most recently complete work, The Dihemispheric Chronaether Agitator, will be showing all this weekend at the Maker Faire in San Mateo.

I just spent the evening in the shop shining it up and tweaking the gears.

I don’t think I’ll run it on steam power but I’ll have the steamengine there for show and attach a hand crank.

I’ll be showing with CTP, Nemomatic and some other folks.

If you are in the bay area come on down and say hello.

I shot some video and quickly threw this little movie together. It as my first time shooting video and it’s something I need some more work at;) But I hope the little story [...]]]> On Thursday Dick and I fired up Little Baby Steamy Pants, on of KSWs small boilers and hooked up the DCA.

I shot some video and quickly threw this little movie together. It as my first time shooting video and it’s something I need some more work at;) But I hope the little story wrapping the video makes up for the low production quality.

If you want to see some photos of the DCA that reveal some of the details not seen in the video go here.

www.pixievisionproductions.com and www.theblight.net.

Over the past few weeks Cyrus Farivar, an NPR reporter, has been putting together a story on Steampunk, including the Steampunk Treehouse and KSW for NPRs All Things Considered. He stopped by the Edwardian Ball and interviewed me while I was (exhausted) and setting up the Dihemispehric Chronaether Agiatator.

Well, the story will be [...]]]> Hey everyone!

Over the past few weeks Cyrus Farivar, an NPR reporter, has been putting together a story on Steampunk, including the Steampunk Treehouse and KSW for NPRs All Things Considered. He stopped by the Edwardian Ball and interviewed me while I was (exhausted) and setting up the Dihemispehric Chronaether Agiatator.

Well, the story will be airing tonight on All Things Considered.

New York – 4 pm to 6:30 pm Eastern – WNYC – 820 AM – www.wnyc.org
Washington, DC – 4 pm to 8 pm Eastern – WAMU – 88.5 FM – www.wamu.org
Los Angeles – 3:30 pm to 6:30 pm Pacific – KPCC – 89.3 FM – www.kpcc.opg
Boston – 5 pm to 7 pm Eastern – WGBH – 89.7 FM – www.wgbh.org
San Francisco – 4:30 pm to 6:30 pm Pacific – KQED – 88.5 FM – www.kqed.org

Update: No mention of the Treehouse or the DCA but still worth listening to it here

The 48 hours leading up to the show were exhausting.

On Thursday night, with my friend Davids help, I was able to get some LED lights installed under the tray. Because the steam engine vibrated I needed [...]]]> Well, it’s been almost a week since the show and I think I’ve finally physically recovered.

The 48 hours leading up to the show were exhausting.

On Thursday night, with my friend Davids help, I was able to get some LED lights installed under the tray. Because the steam engine vibrated I needed some way to keep it fixed in relation to the piece so the chain would stay on. David also helped me set up a nice stained piece of wood for the both the DCA and the steam engine to screw down to.

I finished the patina at NIMBY some time between Thursday night and very early Friday morning and then rushed home to “quickly” boil the copper bowls in baking soda and water to remove the plastic coating the manufacture had put on them.

This took far longer then anticipated and I finished the first bowl as the sun was coming up. After a couple hours sleep I got up and boiled the second bowl. After then rubbing them down with acetone the plastic was finally off but they were covered in water stains so then I needed to spend a couple of hours buffing them to a nice shine.

I’m not sure where the time went but pretty soon it was approaching show time. It was pouring rain, I’d not eaten at all yet and I need to get to the show with enough time to set up before people started to arrive.

I arrived at the show tired, hungry and wet with about 45 minutes to set up. Thankfully there was some food which instantly revolutionized my world view. When I arrived KSW was already mostly set up they were still getting the kinks out of the pipes.

Once I had the piece set up it was time to get it running under steam power. KSW ran a copper steam line from their manifold to my engine.

Once I checked all my gear alignment we opened up the engine.

That’s when the problems started.

First we got a few good spins but then the engine started to knock because there was water in the steam line. Once we got the water out the engine was chugging along beautifully and the DCA was spinning around pleasurably. For about 3 minuets.

Then with a POP and Hzzzzzzsszszszszszs the copper steam line sprang off the manifold which started spewing steam straight up.

Well at that point the show had already started and it was too late to redo the line — so for the rest of the show the DCA never spun under steam power.

I was disappointed but to exhausted to get bent out of shape. Hey, these things happen. In the end I looked at it as a bit of blessing. Since the engine was not running I didn’t need to stand and keep a responsible eye on it all night which was nice because it freed me to have a drink, dance around, hang out with my friends and blow off some of the stress that had build in those last few days.

Luckily, I had some really great friends there who took turns manually turning the engine to drive the piece. Thanks again Benna, David and JMJ!

The DCA was a smash hit and as predicted it traveled through time at exactly 1 SPS (tha’s 1 second per second for those of you who are not almost scientific).

On Saturday when I went to pick it up I was asked if I would install it on the main stage for the the next two nights of ball. I picked it up late on Sunday night it was in perfect condition although covered in fingerprints and strange smudges.

I was too tired to take any photos at the show but below are some I took once I got it home and below those are some photos I found on Flicker.

I’ll post some video soon.

Before you skip to the photos I’d like to thank the following people for their help and support:

David Shule: Grinding, threading, cutting, staining and lighting

Nathanial Taylor: Machining

Jo Slota: Fabrication

Ryon Gesink: Patina and tools

Orion Fredericks: tools

Dick Vennerbeck: Steam support

KSW: Steam, tools and propane

Kelly Parkinson: Snacks

Eveyone at NIMBY

Here are the photos from Flicker