Cris Orfescu was born in Romania and has a strong science background common for so many from the former Eastern Bloc. But he is also a self taught artist and that part of him has blossomed since he immigrated to Los Angeles. He blends science and art in what he calls NanoArt. Orfescu provides high-resolution electron scans of nanosculptures he creates and structures occurring naturally, and encourages artists to alter the images and create even more new NanoArt.

I am the author of an upcoming book, The New Polymath, which features nanotechnology. A polymath is Greek for a Renaissance person like Leonardo Da Vinci or Ben Franklin, good at many disciplines. The New Polymath, in my book, is an enterprise which amalgamates 3,5,10 strands of infotech, biotech, nanotech, cleantech, healthtech to create innovative new solutions. I am a former Gartner analyst and write an innovation blog which catalogs over 40 categories of technology from mobile computing to genetics. I had been aware of Orfescu’s NanoArt festivals and thought it would be appreciative to include his work in the section on nanotech.

I have another chapter which imagines all the hundreds of innovators profiled in the book brought together at a conference in Italy. And, as in the movie Field of Dreams, 10 Polymaths from history show up at the conference, and Michelangelo shows interest in nanoart.

Indeed the book ends as follows:

In another realm, Michelangelo looked down and saw the Piazza della Signoria grow more crowded with tourists, and he turned his attention back to reinterpreting David in nanoart. Then he sighed that six centuries later he still had to worry about new masterpieces Leonardo might create in this new art form.

My book comes out in June from John Wiley and Co. You can preorder now at Amazon. Also, you can see on-going excerpts on the Facebook page and the LinkedIn group for the book.

Invigorating as NanoArt is, I think you will enjoy reading about other innovators in corporate labs and also in places you may not expect much innovation – in the farms of Ireland, the streets of Estonia, the hills of Macedonia and the backroads of Rwanda.

"Molecular Zoo", nanosculpture by Orfescu

Bellow are transcripts from the EuroNaonoForum website. The event was hosted at Prague Congress Centre (Czech Republic).

“There have been several events aiming to build a bridge between the World of Art, Science and Public in the area of Nanotechnologies during the conference. First of all, the accompanying program was set up to, as well as other things, mediate the latest high technologies that are produced by the current science in the area of nanotechnologies to the public – using artistic devices. The project was aimed to mirror the scientific field through the unlimited visual language of art and also, shall we say in a rather subtle way – viceversa. ”

“We were hosting an artwork exhibition of fourteen gifted artists from literally all around the globe. Main contribution came from Cris Orfescu, an American based in California, who is an author, producer, coordinator and evaluator of the annually held online competition NanoArt 21 which started back in 2006 and 2009 is going to be a fourth one in a row. It is certainly the first and most probably still the only online competition/exhibition/festival on NanoArt as such. (For more visit the exhibition slide show here). Orfescu himself says he considers NanoArt to be an appealing and very effective way to communicate a reflection and usage of the latest technological and social movements with and within general public as well as plain informing about the technologies of the 21st Century. You had a chance to see 20 masterpieces of Cristian Orfescu at the EuroNanoForum 2009.
As outlined above, thanks to Cris Orfescu’s kind cooperation we could also present some of the competitors of the above mentioned contest. Namely: Bjoern Daempfling, Carol Cooper, Darcy Lewis, David Derr, David Hylton, Eva Lewarne, Fred Marinello, Chris Robinson, Philip Brun del Re, Renata Spiazzi, Teja Krasek, Ursula Freer.
Last but not least, we were having a very fruitful and nice cooperation with our crucial media partner: “NANO – the Magazine for Small Science”, thanks to which, we got to know a very interesting textile artist and scientist Dr. Frances Geesin, whose artworks you were sure to meet at the conference.
We would like to thank all the artists and especially Cris Orfescu as well as our media partner “NANO – the Magazine for Small Science” for the great cooperation.”