Street Art - Chemistry Wall Tag

Hello lovely Hiveans !

Today I have an entry for the Street Art Community and their Street Art Contest. This time my post to the community is about a Chemistry Wall Tag that I found during my very last nightwalk through Germany a few weeks ago. It is very large and covers four connected walls. As I am a chemist by profession, this tag directly attracted my attention and I had to picture it .. I hope you like it 👻

The Laboratory

The tag covered four walls in total, and I will show and discuss them here in this post in two parts, which will be a laboratory and an industry topic. The first two walls featured this nice laboratory theme, which I really like as it shows many elementary and really nice motives.

The motive that is most accessible on the first wall are probably the molecules shown in a stick-and-ball model. Unfortunately, a clear and specific molecule cant be identified here. There is also no colour indication that could help here, but as this is only a scientific side information that mainly chemists will understand, this does not matter too much. But it is very nicely shown by the green equatorial lines and the black bonds between each atom, that the whole molecule is 3-dimensional.

In addition, there are two connected six-membered ring shown in the lower part of the wall, that resembles the naphthalene structure, the most abundant side product in coal tar and from petroleum refraction. This is quite cool as North Rhine-Westfalia and the Ruhr Area, where this tag was found, is world-famous for its history in chemical industry. It is also the most basic PAH (poly aromatic hydrocarbon), which are found everywhere in nature and interstellar matter. On the right side, you can see a molecule from 3 aromatic rings and some side-chains attached. It looks nearly like a steroid frame, which is an important molecule class, known as signaling molecules in plants, animals and fungi.

There is also a small C₂H₆OH writing on the wall. This is actually the molecular formula of Ethanol, which we probably all know, as it is the drinkable alcohol that became so famous that it is now the most common and most accepted drug amongst all the countries of the world.

There are far more nice things in the wall, such as the double helix that is known to describe the structure of a DNA molecule, the orange danger symbols for corrosive and environmentally hazardous, as well as some screws with + and - signs in red and blue, that indicate either anions and cations, or maybe anodes and cathodes. This I could not identify, but the different polarization is displayed quite obviously. In addition, there is a RUHRUNI tag on the left side of the wall. This is very delightful dedication to the place, where this tag was put at, namely at the Ruhr University in Bochum. This also has a very nice chemistry faculty, which I am very familiar with personally ^^

After the firs wall featured some rather theoretical approaches of a chemistry lab, the second wall shows a more practical approach as a motive. It shows a workbench full of various flasks and glassware. One glass even has a mouse sitting inside on top of a flask. As some of you may know, mice are commonly known for first studies about toxicity, corrosion and cancer evaluation of chemicals. Another flask even has the tag HUSTADT written in it. This is quite fitting again, as the Ruhr University of Bochum is actually located in Bochum-Hustadt. Hustadt is the part of the city where all the student accommodations are to be found, as well as the Uni Center, where students can go for a quick shopping.

Next to all these flasks there is a computer, probably for some data analysis. There is also a cell cultivation plate, a well as the suiting microscope painted on this wall. In between all these motives there are some valves lying around, that are commonly used at gas bottles, and withing big glass setups to keep a special atmosphere for working.

Overall, I really like these two walls. They show some really nice motives on a theoretical and also practical basis. The name and location of the University is also to be found, and all the motives were put some detailed thought at beforehand. Excellent job and a beautiful eyesight for chemists 👍

The Industry

Contrary to the laboratory part, these walls here show a more industrial topic. The mayor motives here are rockets and drugs. Also, there are many thinkable applications of chemistry, the weapon- and pharma industry are the branches that earned a golden nose with the chemical knowledge. It can be seen that these products are rolling on a wheeled street that looks like as big assembly line. The street follows up a hill and there are even stairs in the background. I am not sure what the intention of the artists was in the end, but for me, it looks as if it fits a bit to the thesis that chemistry and the mass production of novel weapons and war machinery, as well as the intense use and prescription of medication, brought the big industries and chemical usage to the top.

There are also some black shadow silhouettes and names painted, which are probably the signatures of the artists of all the walls. The names are Torbella Monaca, Scampia, Sanluca and Zen.

The fourth wall looks like a dedication to drug misuses. The pharma-pyramid seems to transfer some liquid into a glass, and right below are two shoes that belong to a corpse under a white blanket. This looks like a person that just died after drug consumption. There is also the danger symbol for toxicity above that fits to the scheme. There is also a symbol for explosive in the front, so maybe it's not just another drug dead, but someone who died due to explosive weapons? But I assume that the dead is a course of drugs, as there are also stairs to be seen which are covered with a grinder, syringes and some blood. There is also an hourglass which shows the last bloody sand corn already falling into the lower part.

The authors are clearly focusing on the negative aspects of chemical industry and are transmitting the picture of the weapon- and pharma industry as a really negative one. I won't start a discussion here, as it's about street art and is not a philosophical or ethically touched post, but the artist's intention and point of view seems quite clear here 😉

Thank You !

Thank you very much for looking up and reading through my Chemistry Wall Tag post. I looked it up quite a while in more detail before I pictured it. I am maybe preoccupied here, as I am a chemist myself, but I believe that there are some Hiveans out there who are able to appreciate it too ^^

It feels like a big story, that starts with theoretical models and prolongs to the practical approaches. These then show the big industrial aspects and the rather negative results and impacts on the people that are drug addicts. It is so well thought through and a great work by the artists indeed 👍

My entry for the Street Art Contest by the Street Art Community

_{All pictures were taken by myself, ©Hive account@adalger, with a Xiaomi Redmi Mobile Phone at the Ruhr University in Bochum, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany in December 2021.}