Comments on: From Atoms to Patterns – Communicating Ambiguous Science http://mutablematter.wordpress.com/2008/05/18/from-atoms-to-patterns-communicating-ambiguous-science/ Interdisciplinary writing on representation, materiality and agency Fri, 10 May 2013 22:26:07 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: Angela http://mutablematter.wordpress.com/2008/05/18/from-atoms-to-patterns-communicating-ambiguous-science/#comment-227 Sun, 03 Aug 2008 22:38:31 +0000 http://mutablematter.wordpress.com/?p=129#comment-227 Hmh. Last week, I went to a talk about art and science at the Transition Gallery

http://www.transitiongallery.co.uk/htmlpages/Scribing%20the%20Soul.htm

in London with the artist Susan Aldworth ( http://www.susanaldworth.com/flash.html ) and Caterina Albano from Central Saint Martins. Susan Aldworth also focuses on the brain in her work.

It was interesting to hear how the body was talked about at different times in history: a mysterious realm that people try to map with different techniques, and different organs being bearers of aspects of the ‘spiritual self’ (e.g. the heart bearing the soul – or the brain bearing the soul/consciousness/self).

Talking of organs as ‘bearers’ of something spiritual, I also recently came across this blog post of concerned Christians

http://www.facingthechallenge.org/brainstory.php

who seem to see a danger in reducing the brain and, with it, spiritual experiences, to ‘atoms, molecules and chemicals’. I wonder how the author would react to artistic representations which negotiate different positions about the workings of the brain…

]]> By: Sebastian Abrahamsson http://mutablematter.wordpress.com/2008/05/18/from-atoms-to-patterns-communicating-ambiguous-science/#comment-206 Mon, 26 May 2008 10:15:10 +0000 http://mutablematter.wordpress.com/?p=129#comment-206 This is such an interesting project I think – and it has some relevance for the stuff I’m trying to do in my own research, which is about the body’s invisibilities, erh geography, visualisation technology etc :) You may already have seen this but here in Oxford there is an (1) exhibit of Dorothy Hodgkin’s, depicting the electron density contour of a penicillin molecule on horizontal sheets of glass (in three dimensions) in the science museum. The reason it came to my mind while reading your blog, was that this particular sculpture later became the main inspiration for an artist (www.angelaspalmer.com) who I am writing about in my own thesis. Anyway keep up the good work!

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