Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Glass Microbiology

On BoingBoing I saw a really cool convergence of art & science:

of Deadly Viruses and Bacteria

The clear forms are beautiful in their own right, but the bit of text accompanying the article made me think a little deeper about the ideas being conveyed.
These glass representations are visually pure in the sense that microorganisms don't possess perceivable 'color' like they are often shown in illustrations or enhanced images.

We rely on visualization to conceptualize phenomena outside our range of normal vision, like viruses that are artificially colored or Hubble pictures of nebulas that are enhanced by NASA.

Ultimately, everything is just our perception.

The artist's website has more amazing images of the various sculptures of viruses & bacteria:




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