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Golden eggs, mental health stories, tiny robot printers

July 12th, 2019
Golden eggs, mental health stories, tiny robot printers
This image, by Sarah Aldridge, shows the intricately patterned, golden surface of an egg belonging to a winged animal. Though it may look like it could well belong to a dragon, this image's diameter spans less than 1 millimetre across. This is a micrograph of a Wood Tiger Moth egg, and demonstrates the beauty, as well as the functionality of patterns such as these. The symmetrical pattern is thought to act as a funnel, channelling sperm towards the pores that lie at the centre of the rosette, influencing the success rate for fertilisation during mating. Credit: Sarah Aldridge/ Swansea University

Sixteen stunning images, and the fascinating stories behind them—such as the beautiful golden egg of a tiger moth, and tiny robot printers that use salt or dust instead of ink—have today been revealed as the winners of the 2019 Research as Art awards.

While most entries were from Swansea University researchers, this year's competition saw more submissions from other universities, including institutions in France, USA, Bulgaria, Finland, South Africa and Singapore.

The overall winner is "Living with Vernon", which captures research aimed at unearthing the stories of eight people who were committed to a private mental hospital in Briton Ferry in south Wales, called Vernon House, between 1850 and 1880.

The submission is a drawn image representing people from the period, superimposed onto a map of the area, with an accompanying story. It was created by Katherine Murray of the College of Arts and Humanities.

Research as Art is open to researchers from all subjects, with an emphasis on revealing hidden research stories, as well as composing a striking image.

It offers an outlet for researchers' creativity, revealing the hidden stories and attempts to humanise science and research. The project also celebrates the diversity, beauty, and impact of research at Swansea University—a top 30 research university.

Golden eggs, mental health stories, tiny robot printers
During the 1800s every county had to have a lunatic asylum, Glamorgan included, but the county was too poor to build one, so they 'rented' space from the private asylum in Briton Ferry, Vernon House. Credit: Katherine Murray/Swansea University

82 entries were received from researchers across all Colleges of Swansea University and from other institutions, with titles such as:

  • Psychedelic semiconductors
  • The thirst of a vampyre
  • Beauty is more than skin deep

A distinguished judging panel of senior figures from the Royal Institution, Nature, Research Fortnight magazine and Digital Science selected a total of sixteen winners. Along with the overall winner, there were seven other awards and eight runners-up.

Overall winner Katherine Murray described the research behind her entry:

"During the 1800s every county had to have a lunatic asylum, Glamorgan included, but the county was too poor to build one, so they 'rented' space from the private asylum in Briton Ferry, Vernon House.

Golden eggs, mental health stories, tiny robot printers
Sustainabot: Exploring the Use of Everyday Foodstuffs as Output and Input for and with Emergent Users. Mainstream digital interactions are spread over a plethora of devices and form-factors, from mobiles to laptops; printouts to large screens. For emergent users, however, such abundance of choice is rarely accessible or affordable. In particular, viewing mobile content on a larger screen, or printing out copies, is often not available. Proposed and developed by and with emergent users through a series of co-creation workshops (seen above) our work has been investigating the use of small robot "printers" that use everyday materials (such as salt or dust) to print shapes and patterns from mobile phones onto flat surfaces. These materials have the advantage of being affordable and sustainable, both through appropriation and reuse and their relatively environmentally friendly nature compared with, say, disposable inkjet cartridges. Credit: Simon Robinson/Swansea University

My research is centred around eight private patients that were committed by their families between 1850 and 1880. They were ordinary middle-class people who suffered different mental illnesses. My research will bring to life both the house and people, their lost voices and their fate. At the moment they are a few historical documents; faceless. I hope to not only bring them to life but also inform about early care for the mentally ill."

Competition founder and director Professor Richard Johnston, professor in materials science and engineering at Swansea University, said:

"Research as Art is an opportunity for researchers to reveal hidden aspects of their research to audiences they wouldn't normally engage with. This may uncover their personal story, their humanity, their inspiration, and emotion.

It can also be a way of presenting their research process, and what it means to be a researcher; fostering dialogue, and dissolving barriers between universities and the wider world."

Provided by Swansea University

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