What is art? Art could be a painting, a drawing, a sculpture, maybe even a piece of literature or poetry, music, or dance. All of these things take special skill, they take talent but what if I told you that anyone can make art? You don’t need to be able to paint or draw, write or compose, all you need to be able to do is think. This is called conceptual art since it is focused on the conceptualization of the art, the material part becomes secondary. For the project that I will be writing about in this blog post, each of us used this form of art to portray the historical significance of The Manhattan Project and the dropping of the bomb on Hiroshima. As the conceptual artist that I am, I did just that by answering this driving question:

How did the development of the atomic bomb change the world?

I am your host, Jordyn Eyton, who will be taking the form of an artist today to describe my learning journey through out this project and present to you my art piece, “The Neutron is in Your Hands.”

HIGHLIGHTS

As always, I like to start my blog posts off on a positive note by talking about some of the aspects of this latest project that I loved, that resonated with me, or that I am proud of. These aspects also tend to be important milestones in my learning and development as I reach the final goal. Let’s start with our novel study: Hiroshima by John Hersey.

Hiroshima was the first accurate piece of journalism written from the Japanese perspective that was wide spread and read all over the world. In my literary criticism on the novel I came to the conclusion that because of this, the novel changed the perspective many people had on Hiroshima and the controversial ending to World War 2 that it created. This was the first time I ever had to critique a book and it was not easy but I found that I enjoyed the book more as I searched for deeper meanings within the text and analyzed the literary devices that Hersey used to write a story that is still extremely important today. 

The idea that Hiroshima changed how the world viewed the bomb ended up inspiring my final project – it forced me to think about how the bomb effects us today. I knew it must otherwise why would Hiroshima still be read in school every year? So that’s what I started with, I started by asking myself how we see discoveries made during the Manhattan Project (fission, fusion, radioactive isotopes, etc.) era being used in our every day lives. How are we still effected by the atomic bomb dropped almost 80 years ago. I won’t give it away quite yet.

Now for my next highlight of this project, I want to talk about how I was inspired by my previous “mini blog posts” as I like to call them. To kick start this entire unit, I wrote a post about why the discovery of insulin was so significant, why it was historically significant but I don’t need to go into detail so you can read more about that here. By analyzing the discovery of insulin and following historical significance criteria, I was introduced to and allowed to deepen my understanding of what makes an event historical significant. I was easily able to apply this understanding as we read Hiroshima and learned about the Manhattan Project. This blog post and the content that I created almost became a cheat sheet for deciding what makes history significant so it helped me choose an idea for my conceptual art piece: The Historical Significance of the bomb today from a science perspective.

My second blog post I wrote was one I mentioned earlier, the Literary Criticism on Hiroshima. This blog post forced me to analyze the book from several perspectives and then apply the supporting quotes I chose from the book along with my own research to make a claim about the book which was good practice for my project where I had to gather research and learning to make a claim about the event rather than the book.

MY CONCEPTUAL ART PIECE

With all of this new found knowledge found in my plentiful Zettlekasten, analysis and discussion of Hiroshima, as well as a couple writing opportunities (in the from of blog posts) I was ready to conceptualize my art piece. It started with this:

Ta da! Amazing, right? Ok, not so amazing but we are getting there so let me explain. When Mr.Hughes did his lecture on atomic bombs 101 at the beginning of the project, I immediately resonated with the atomic chain reaction that was discovered during the development of the atomic bomb by Leo Szilard and held that idea in my brain. A couple days later I was heading up to the orthodontist in an elevator when I noticed the mirrors on the wall. No, I am not just filling you in on all my life’s adventures over the past two months, I’m telling you this for a reason. When two mirrors face each other, you are reflected infinitely when standing in between them, almost like a chain reaction dare I say! Once I had this base of a physical art piece and a general idea I brought together all of my research and spat out this conceptualization:

The scientific chain reaction that created Little Boy and Fat Man never ended; it continued on to develop new science and technology across disciplines. Just like the decision to drop the bomb on Hiroshima changed the course of history, each of our actions and decisions surrounding technology and science now reflect the future ahead of us.

I was able to include my inquiry as to how we are effected but the event today as well as my interest in science. I was also greatly inspired by a video called “A is for Atom” which is an animation about the atomic bomb and atomic power that was publicized after the bomb was dropped:

Now here is the grand reveal of what my art piece looked like. I know it is hard to see the actual chain reaction in the mirror because Alex and I are both standing in front of it but…. Just imagine!

If you want to read more about my conceptualization and development of “The Neutron is in Your Hands”, read my artist’s statement below!

What really pushed me to create the art piece that I did was my constant inquiry into how the past effects people today and how our decisions now determine the future. In the context of the atomic bomb, I knew I could apply this idea through my own research, conceptualization, and connection. The discovery of fissionable uranium and plutonium as well as the atomic chain reaction that led to the eventual detonation of “Little Boy” and “Fat Man” initiated another chain reaction. One that has carried through to today and is continuously influenced by our decisions. Out of the atomic bomb and the Manhattan Project, developments in science, technology, and research have grown and flourished and are evident through out society today. The historical chain reaction that the Manhattan Project created has grown into something greater, something beyond military use; developments in “big science”, medicine, military, energy, agriculture, and pure nuclear science. We see breakthroughs in treatment for cancer, an understanding of how living and nonliving components live in an environment, nuclear power as a source of clean energy, isotope and radiation research applicable to agriculture, etc. I have chosen to express this idea through mirrors where, standing on the “x”, you will see yourself reflected infinitely, representing how our actions today, our decisions surrounding nuclear science and technology will be reflected in a future chain reaction. Through this medium, I desire to cultivate thought in the viewer. What will you do with the neutron? You, the person reading this statement, are a component of my conceptual art piece as you try to answer this question, just as you are a part of history and a part of the future. As the decision to drop the bomb over Hiroshima ended the war and changed the course of history, our actions and decisions today surrounding technological and scientific advancements reflect the future ahead of us, they are reflected in the mirror. The neutron that split the atom and ignited he chain reaction within “Little Boy” almost eighty years ago is now in your hands. What will you do with it?

THE EXHIBITION

The next step in this unit (as always right before winter break) was the winter exhibition! Our class was putting on art museum exhibits through out or school based on our projects: Science and Technology, Politics and warfare, Morals/Ethics/Philosophy, or Arts and Culture. As I focused on the chain reaction, I ended up in the Science and Technology room.

Although it was important to have my project together and organized, when it came to the planning  and execution of the exhibition, teamwork played a really important role and I didn’t really realize that until we actually got into the staff room to start decorating. I took the role of curator along with Alexee and. It was certainly a big job. We planned, designed, and layer out our room as well as organized decorations and themed the room. Delegating was huge as well as communication when it came to decorating and organizing all of our individual projects into one space. It was definitely a challenge as we had not fully had to work together until the day of the exhibition but it ended up working perfectly and each of us used our unique skills to bring the science and tech room together.

I was really happy with how my art piece turned out, it very much represented my thinking and allowed me to express my creativity through thought and conceptualizing which is great because I certainly cannot paint, draw or sculpt. I loved my overall idea but if I were to do this project again I think I would have dove deeper into specifically how we see radiation and the atomic chain reaction used today. As I presented to people, I felt like I was very vague when it came to my research (though I did fair amounts just maybe not on the right things) though my idea was very supported and abstract which I am proud of. My infinity mirror was the interactive “wow factor” that represented my piece of art and it ended up working pretty well but I definitely think I could have spent more time testing how to reflect the image more times as it only went up to about five times. The final things that I would change is to add some type of audio or image to push it one step further but I ran out of time.

I think that my project definitely reflected the driving question being that the whole purpose of my art was to provoke thought in my viewers about how the discovery of nuclear power in the Manhattan project effects them today. My whole goal was to make them think about what we can actually do with this incredible development, that it doesn’t only have to be used for war and weapons, that we have to learn from our mistakes and use the technology for good. I really wanted to show that the bomb changed the world of science (we see that in medicine, agriculture, energy, engineering, as well pure science and industry) and these discoveries (radioisotopes, nuclear reactors, fission) are used in our lives every day.

I was really happy with how my art piece turned out, it very much represented my thinking and allowed me to express my creativity through thought and conceptualizing which is great because I certainly cannot paint, draw or sculpt. I loved my overall idea but if I were to do this project again I think I would have dove deeper into specifically how we see radiation and the atomic chain reaction used today. As I presented to people, I felt like I was very vague when it came to my research (though I did fair amounts just maybe not on the right things) though my idea was very supported and abstract which I am proud of. My infinity mirror was the interactive “wow factor” that represented my piece of art and it ended up working pretty well but I definitely think I could have spent more time testing how to reflect the image more times as it only went up to about five times. The final things that I would change is to add some type of audio or image to push it one step further but I ran out of time.

This project, I noticed, really pushed my past historical significance knowledge that we have been learning about since grade 8 further. I started really understanding it and using it as a tool, almost like a criteria to test on any historical event, person, discovery, etc. I think the part of this project that inspired my further learning was the Socratic seminars. This is definitely a skill that I want to work on because I definitely felt like I improved after each seminar but there is definitely still more work to do. I can apply this new skill to presenting and debating as lately, public speaking and sharing my ideas has been more challenging. It was a great experience.

Well, that is all for today folks and I hope you enjoyed my yearly winter exhibition post (this is my last one!) and learning something about the Manhattan Project and Conceptual Art. The is conceptual artist, Jordyn Eyton, signing off! See you after Christmas Break.