Abstract
An impressive range of competing and complementary visual renditions helps us understand the immaterial and the invisible by assigning a visual appearance to microscopic and submicroscopic substances. However, the sheer variety that dominates visualization of the microscopic suggests that a represented object may be so complex that it cannot be reflected by a single artefact. That is to say, it is not a monolithic given, a pristine entity or a “thing in itself” waiting to be dismembered and represented. I analyse mixed media installations by the bioartists Tagny Duff and Elaine Whittaker, contending that their method constitutes a recent media art trend towards ecological (re)thinking. By examining specific arrangements of objects and artefacts and the scientific processes used to manipulate, prepare and make the microscopic visible and by placing them side by side in the same execution, these artists unveil new alternative economies of nature that may reshape the way we understand the microscopic.
Highlights
An impressive range of competing and complementary visual renditions helps us understand the immaterial and the invisible by assigning a visual appearance to microscopic and submicroscopic substances
the sheer variety that dominates visualization of the microscopic suggests that a represented object may be so complex that
it cannot be reflected by a single artefact
Summary
Resumen Una variedad impresionante de representaciones visuales que compiten y se complementan nos ayuda a entender lo inmaterial y lo invisible, al asignar una apariencia visual a las sustancias microscópicas y submicroscópicas. La gran variedad que domina la visualización de lo microscópico sugiere que el objeto representado manifiesta una complejidad que no puede resumirse a través de un solo artefacto. Analizo las instalaciones de medios mixtos (mixed media) creadas por bioartistas como Tagny Duff y Elaine Whittaker, y sostengo que el método que proponen constituye una tendencia reciente en la historia del arte de los medios vinculado al (re)planteamiento ecológico. Al examinar disposiciones específicas de objetos, artefactos y procesos científicos empleados para manipular, preparar y hacer visible lo microscópico, y al situarlas juntas en el mismo proyecto, estas artistas desvelan nuevas economías alternativas de la naturaleza que pueden modificar el modo en que entendemos lo microscópico. Universitat Oberta de Catalunya Representar lo microscópico: nuevo pensamiento ecológico sobre arte y ciencia
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