We relate to an image in context with the place where we see it. Showing scientific images in an art space can be confusing if you don’t know what you’re in for.
It’s a worthwhile contemporary experiment in the sense that science has become an omnipresent part of our reality, and it’s interesting to explore the limits of the meaning and purpose of scientific images.
I can recognize the blown-up images of molecules because I have seen similar ones before or by reading the description. In a place of science, this might not have happened: I stood back and let them sink in, taking a closer look at the abstract forms, realizing: This could be anything. Not knowing how big this thing is in reality, I can imagine it to be anything. Something small zoomed in or a city from a distance. A couple of times, I saw something I would have liked to copy or use, say, as an animation. There’s a fun thing about those images, beckoning me to play. A thing I found funny was how some images could have passed as modern art, had they been painted on canvas.
A different aspect I thought about was the visual properties of nature. Some of these colors were very nice. I wondered if this was an actual attribute of the object or if a pigment had been added by the scientist to make a certain membrane better visible.
In the end, I do believe that scientific images can be put in an art space to enhance the viewer’s flexibility when it comes to the subject. Personally, I found these images very romantic. The devotion of human kind to find their origin developed with them into being and will never fade. Now that’s love!