Cosmopolitical Futures: Fate Maps – Black Lace: scanning electron microscope narratives
Rogers, Kathleen (2017) Cosmopolitical Futures: Fate Maps – Black Lace: scanning electron microscope narratives. Photography & Culture, 10 (3). pp. 1-9. ISSN 1751-4517
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The Fate Maps - Black Lace series consists of 16 images that explore the cultural associations of lace in scientific contexts. The work explores the visual resemblance of Chantilly lace to a photographic negative, the quantum processes underlying the operation of the scanning electron microscope (SEM) and the intrinsic mystery of metamorphosis and the co-alliances of humans and animals in social, cultural, economic and bioscientific domains. The scanning electron microscopy method to produce the work in this series is sometimes poetically referred to as dark space imaging. The image maginification in the SEM is not a function of the power of an optical lens, but a fine pencil beam of electrons that moves like a TV scan to pencil out an image over time as the electrons scatter off target from the surface features of an object. The electrons travel in a vacuum and since a vacuum cannot support life, the system can only provide a view of dead structures. These fossil-like readings have a wonderfully vivid depth of focus brought about by the submicron fineness of the electron beam. In the SEM, electrons interact with the atoms of an object to produce deflection signals that contain information about its surface topography, physical composition and electrical conductivity. The information is blind and resonant like musical scores written in Braille. The underlying conceptual form of the work is based on theoretical work and ethical frame-working of philosopher of science, Karen Barad.
To create the work, an antique Chantilly (black) lace sample indexed amongst Lady Cadbury's donations to the Birmingham Museum lace collection was meticulously prepared for microscopic imaging much like a biological specimen. Chantilly black lace importantly provided a number of culturally evocative metaphors. I was particularly interested in the national origins of the silk, the protein fibers excreted from the larval silkworm and how these creatives traces might be entangled.
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