Images and Imaginations: An Exploration of Nanotechnology Image Galleries

Abstract

Unl ike many "non-art" scientific images [1], many nanoscience/nanotechnology images are produced explicitly as art, although few approach "high" art destined to be preserved for and revered by posterity. Some appear to be crude sketches and sculptures composed with unusual materials and tools; others are hyperrealistic computer-graphic depictions of imaginary nanoscale scenes; and still others present structures that are framed, enhanced and colored to resemble naturalistic objects and landscapes. In this essay, we examine how different types of images distinctively challenge the viewer's imagination while also drawing upon familiar scenes, styles and materials. The most ostentatiously imaginative images often deploy the most conventional means to depict nanoscale reality. NANOSCIENCE/ NANOTECHNOLOGYThere is no strict division between the scientific and technological aspects of research on nanoscale phenomena. Such research is a clear example of "technoscience": scientific research reliant upon technological intervention as an irreducible element. Although we could dub the field "nanotechnoscience," we prefer the shorthand term "nano." Even the most basic nano research involves the construction and manipulation of molecular and atomic matter (commonly within the range of 1-100 × 10 -9 meters). Efforts to etch, carve or assemble such matter are prominent in nano research. MAKING THE STRANGE FAMILIARNanoscale phenomena do not simply exist in a small world made up of things too small to see. Instead, nanoscale matter is said to involve quantum forces that differ profoundly from the macroscopic or even microscopic realms [2]. Microscopes such as the scanning tunneling microscope (STM) visualize such objects in a way that differs from traditional optical and electron microscopes. The STM scans surfaces and measures variations in the flow of electrons from the surface being imaged to the tip of a probe. The measured variations are then converted into topographic images, but the instrument does not reveal what an imaginary nanoscale observer could possibly see. Although researchers recognize that they are explor-

Lay metrology and metroscoping: Towards the study of lay units

“…Nanobots and nanotubes can be represented for popular consumption either more technically (imagery produced through scanning tunnelling electron microscopy) or more imaginatively (by graphic designers or artists where links are drawn to applications). For De Ridder-Vignone and Lynch (2012) and Ruivenkamp and Rip (2014), technical depictions serve to ‘authenticate’ the reality of the nanotechnology and its underpinning, whereas imaginative representations serve to establish the practical promise of nanotechnology. However, we can also note that nanotechnology is not untypically compared to (a fraction of) the width of a human hair: as the inventor of the original Vantablack (new forms of Vantablack are now available) put it:Each nanotube in the vantablack forest has a diameter of around 20 nanometres (that’s about 3,500 times smaller than the diameter of the average human hair), and are typically from around 14 microns to 50 microns long.…”

On “Aesthetic Publics”

“…For instance, representations of nanotubes or nanobots can be more or less “technical” (e.g., derived from scanning tunneling electron microscope imaging) or “designerly” (graphic imaginative depictions of these and their various uses). As Ruivenkamp and Rip (2014) and De Ridder-Vignone and Lynch (2012) have commented, in the former case, these representations aim to establish the reality and “authenticity” of nanotechnology (as well as the seriousness of the underlying science); in the latter case, these representations mediate expectations about potential applications. While most of these analyses rightly engage with the processes by which these representations are put together, and how they might influence audiences’ readings (e.g., Campbell, Deane and Murphy 2015), they pay less attention to any accompanying accounts of how these depictions might be experienced by their audiences.…”

“…Having made this point, representations of nanotechnology are embedded within a range of media. While many of these representations are presented in magazines, newspapers, or online galleries (e.g., De Ridder-Vignone and Lynch 2012; Schillmeier 2015), others comprise elements within events, including exhibitions (e.g., De Ridder-Vignone 2012) and various forms of public participation (e.g., Delgado, Kjølberg, and Wickson 2011; Macnaghten and Guivant 2011; Felt, Schumann, and Schwarz 2015). Here, engagement with publics is a primary concern and, as such, the experience of audiences is a focal point, whether that be to open up possibilities of interpretation or to enable the expression of anxieties and aspirations (e.g., Last 2014; Chilvers and Kearnes 2016).…”

Resonant worlds: Cultivating proximal encounters in planetary science

“…Anthropologists of science experiment with how to discuss and find meaning in scientific practices that strive to overcome these distances, such as visualizations and embodiments. As tools, visualizations powerfully give shape to the unseen, as with the nanoscale (De Ridder‐Vignone and Lynch ) and the immaterial, when, for example, scientists use brain scans to represent otherwise amorphous concepts like depression or insanity (Dumit ; see also Alač for an analysis of the embodied interaction that scientists establish with brain scans). Anthropologists have also been interested in the role of human bodies as tools for connecting with the inaccessible.…”