I thought of an idea I want to test out that combines the process of science to make a document or piece that uses a bit of art, or rather could be presented as such, as it’s dependent on the context (outside lab conditions), where I’m presenting it (possibly in an art gallery), and because I was trained as an artist at one point.
We did the red cabbage indicator pH experiment a couple of weeks ago. I want to replicate this experiment with the mediums of art.
The hypotheses are:
Hypothesis 1:
If the type of art medium is different, the pH level reading would be different.
Null hypothesis:
There is no significant difference between the different types of art mediums and pH levels.
Variables:
Independent variable:
The type of art medium
Dependent variable:
The colour of the cabbage indicator after application
Control(s):
The cabbage indicator and the test tray
Graph:
Bar graph, because I’m working with discontinuous data. The type of medium is on the X axis, and the pH level on the Y axis
Implications:
The test tray is going to be a white paint palette, because the spot plate costs more, but it’s interesting how the aesthetics of art is coming into contact with what is thought as a science context. The material is potentially the same, but the shape alters how we read the appliance. Perhaps this affects the pricing of equipment due to social desirability, but I’m getting ahead of myself. Although I think it raises some questions of accessibility and the various associations of status. It could be because art bases status of materials on historical lineage and science bases status of materials on functionality, but that is just my own opinion.
I’ll test it out, and use the samples at the end to paint on art paper and label the test pieces. Maybe I’ll even paint something from the colours it produces and it’ll be research into the different types of codes as comparative analysis. For the mediums, I’m sticking mainly to white, as I think that using heavily pigmented mediums could interfere with the results, giving an inaccurate reading of the pH level. I also can’t test oil paint, because it’s oil based.
If I have any red cabbage indicator in the ‘beaker’ (realistically my PYREX measuring jug) left over, I might go further and record what it looks like over time, making it a time based piece; using time as the X axis and colour intensity as the Y axis in a line graph.
This last bit isn’t related to the hypothesis, but is interesting in the Bourdieu sense (and in the context of my art research), would my activity be interpreted differently, if I wrote ‘plastic measuring jug’ or even ‘pyrex measuring jug’ instead of ‘PYREX measuring jug’? Would the experiment have more validity if a MSc graduate replicated it instead of an MA graduate?