Sunday, December 28, 2008

Autofluorescence as artifact

What happens when the probably brighter reflective or refractive light of the microscopic slide supersedes the fleeting light of the fluorophore that we use to render the microscopic subject? We take autofluorescence as artifact. As interference. As noise. As the cause of an unwilling suspension of the gaze.

What, then, constitutes the "real" in the dialectic played out in and on the visible of the slide? The effects, it would appear, of photosensitive dye. And so it is that the real gets rewritten as the effects on an injection. As the short-lived effects of a glowing dye.

So there's an attraction here. The potential of an induced autofluorescence. A xenographic encoding on the surface of the slide. An inscription prior to seeing. And a willing redirection of the gaze.

What happens when the light of the microscopic slide becomes the subject of the microscopic slide? We then take autofluorescence as subject. As carrier. As the deliverer of some foreign message.

What's interesting here is the idea of the long-standing physical attributes of glass acting as a type of inhibitor, or limiter, over what it is that glass lets us see in the first place. When we inscribe the surface of the slide to encourage this type of internal glow we cut a channel through our own field of sight.

Thursday, December 18, 2008

The Accessible Aquarium

We should keep our eye on this experimental music department at Georgia Tech.