EyeWire-Inspired Art

EyeWirer melissa0774 has been working on a special art project inspired by EyeWire: physical cubes! Check out the image gallery on Imgur and read the artist’s description of these unique pieces:

I know everyone likes the 3D printed neurons, but I wanted to see something different.This is a series of real life cubes, made from polymer clay and acrylic boxes that are intended to keep autographed baseballs in. Instead of whole cells, I decided to depict different types of cubes with cell fragments at various stages of completion. I like the graphics in this game and I was struck by how much the cells look like pieces of polymer clay. They have this interesting, visual, tactile quality to them, like clouds or molten lava – or snow if you’re a kid in Texas like I once was 😉 – objects you’d like to touch and see what they feel like, but you can’t for obvious reasons.  I happened to have a box of clay on the table next to my computer where I play this game, so I thought I’d make some cubes that you can touch. I photographed them under a florescent black light and staged them to look as much like what you see in the game, as possible, without using any photo shopping or trickery of any kind. Everything you see in the pictures is 100% real.

The inspiration for the mouse pictures came from the equation covered glass partitions at the Princeton Neuroscience Institute building where Eyewire HQ is located. They like to write equations on every possible surface! I’ve been there plenty of times, to participate in paid psychology experiments. I’ve been interested in brain science research for a long time and I enjoy talking to the students and researchers and seeing what they’re doing. I live in Belle Mead NJ, about 10 minutes from Princeton University. I have AS degrees in TV/Radio and communications and I’ve worked in public radio. I like to make videos and do art projects like this one as a hobby. Check out my Youtube channel, melissa0774, same as my eyewire username.