3. How depictions of Biological Organisms become Art - Cell Biology

Cell Biology ​​​

For my next avenue of research, I will be discussing Cell Biology's journey to becoming an Art form. I had recalled in my own Biology lessons the images I'd seen through the microscopes and how the arrangements of the cells struck me as almost an organic art. It was beautiful and the colors through dyes added only enforced this. This led me to come across, during my initial search into the study, scientists who were already producing art not only of but with microscopic organisms.​

​Although I am sure there are many more forms of art that I could discuss I decided that the big three for me were software-built art, illustration and sculpture. These were the main forms of which I was seeing cell biology presented in an art form.​

Software-built Cell Biology Art -

My first examples fall in the category of software-built art. The 'Cell Biology as Art' Exhibition[1] presents the beauty that Recursion Pharmaceuticals, a digital biology company, uncovered in their process of scientific inquiry into microscopic cells.

Recursion Pharmaceuticals are developing a drug discovering platform with machine learning. It uses a technique known as cell painting, developed by Anne Carpenter, and what I am interested in is the subtle art that was unintentionally produced. The Procedure of "cell painting" covers the cells in as many fluorescent dies as possible, to bring out aspects of the structure of the cell that can then be entered as input to a machine learning model to in turn find features of interest that change with alterations of the function in the biological system by external or internal means such as environmental stimuli, drug inhibition, and reduction in gene expression. Although it is not essential to understand why this company was doing this for my study, Robert Paul Mecham, PhD, Alumni Endowed Professor explains it concisely: “Cells often exist in communities where they work together to carry out complex functions in response to the environment and coordinate the activities that form the essential systems of life. The understanding of these functions and interactions in 'normal' cells is crucial for identifying the underlying mechanisms of human disease, knowledge that lays the foundation for developing therapeutic targets and novel therapies to counter disease". Although the scientists use these images as a crucial source of scientific fact, the beauty of the images obtained using a limited number of colors, due to technical restrictions of the microscopes, provides a stunning snapshot of the "art of life"- quoting Mecham. What this reminded me of is Fibonacci's spiral[2] appearing in nature such as in the branching of trees, arrangements of leaves on a stem, the fruitlets of a pineapple, the flowering of artichoke, an uncurling fern and the arrangement of a pinecone. It was Kepler who recognized that leaves are often aligned in a pattern that includes two Fibonacci numbers. Fibonacci sequence appears in nature because its numerical sequence represents structures and sequences that model physical reality. The reason for my mention of this is because of the strong connection between this mathematical sequence and the composition of Artwork. Gallery owner, Markl Mitchell says "Artists recognized that the Fibonacci Spiral is an expression of an aesthetically pleasing principle- The Rule of Thirds." What I took from this exhibition is that nature in itself is an artform but only becomes Art once recognized, whether that be microscopic cells or leaf formations.​

My next example of how depictions of biological organisms become art is this 3D medical animation company[3] that combines cinematic visuals with extremely informative depictions of inner cell activity. Art of the Cell is a 3D medical animation studio founded by 3D artist, John Liebler who is best known for working with Harvard University Bio-visions to create their molecular animation “The Inner Life of the Cell” that established a dramatic, cinematic look for educational scientific visualizations.

The use of the animated depictions of cell biology range from the education of students, to explain the research of pioneers in the field of bio-science via scientific method animations. Animation in itself is an artform so the animated depiction of Biological Organisms can be appreciated as art immediately. ​

At this point in my research, I came across Bio-Art[4] which has, only after two decades, distinguished itself as an art practice where people work with live tissues, bacteria, living organisms, and life processes. Using scientific processes such as biotechnology (including technologies such as genetic engineering, tissue culture, and cloning) the artworks are produced in laboratories, galleries, or artists' studios. Many an intellectual has danced on the line of science and art and in this case, I think they have successfully unified the two. In an online journal of Pioneering Medical Sciences, a submission stated that "What sets this new field apart is the fact that life serves not only as the central subject, but as the very medium of creative expression e.g., bacteria growing on agar in petri dishes". An example of Bio-Art Artists are the Agar Art 2015 winners Maria Peñil Cobo, Mixed Media Artist, and Mehmet Berkmen, PhD, Staff Scientist at New England Biolabs.

During their multi-year collaboration, Maria and Memo created astonishing works of art using living microbes. I considered attempting their process in a response to this section of research however it was unfortunately unattainable. Perhaps what I have taken from this aspect of my research is that the distinction between the two principles is in the past. In the modern day, the depictions of Biological Organisms, at least in Cell Biology, refuses to be boxed into a separate category from art because it does more than play with images from the lab. The images are created with the purpose of being art. ​

Cell Biology illustration & sculpture –

My next examples fall into the category of illustration. Lucy Madeline[5] is an artist who translates her work in sex education into art informing on cell division, for example.

She works in activism and sex education so a lot of her art-work focuses around depicting either the female form or sex education. She aims to translate these transformative events into the art space via her cell drawings In pencil and watercolor. Madeline questions on her website “Where is the line between education and art practice? How can these come together to make pedagogical art praxis that relocates the art experience from one of privilege and elitism to one of a collective movement, conversation, or experience?”. I particularly liked the drawings of various stages in cellular mitosis and the replication of mother cells into daughter cells, investigating ideas of time, genesis and the m(other)ness of the body. David Goodsell[6], similarly, does paintings depicting inner cells as scientifically accurately as possible for the purpose of education.

Goodsell is one of the world’s foremost molecular artists. His intricate watercolor paintings, showing the inner workings of cells, are a staple of the biological sciences. Cell biologists use them to foster their sense of how cells are organized, how crowded they are, and to visualize the way that thousands of various proteins glob together to perform functions that result in life itself. Medicinal chemists use them to see how various receptors are organized in the effort to design new drugs. Since the structures he paints are invisible to a normal microscope, he uses what a fellow scientist once termed an “intuitive palette” to create an almost joyful array of color that shows how cells are organized and how they function. Unlike Madeline, he resists calling his pieces art. He says they are meant to be viewed through the prism of science. ”My goal with these pictures,” he says, “is always to be as scientifically accurate as possible.” ​

My next examples fall into the category of sculpture. Bathsheba Grossman[7], an American artist, depicts biological forms/ mathematical structures with metal sculptures. Her bronze sculptures are primarily mathematical in nature, often depicting intricate patterns or mathematical oddities (for instance, a figure with only one side but three edges). ACC artist Mark Doolittle[8], who holds a Ph.D. in biology, depicts cells and tissues with wood carvings.

He describes his work, "I want the viewer to sense that my sculptural pieces ‘grew' that way rather than having been carved." ​

What I mainly take from these artists is that the depictions of biological organisms are up for interpretation as to whether you want to consider them an art piece or an informative device, their initial purpose. Regardless, art had been used as a device to create them. The definition of an Artwork is 'something created to be beautiful or to express an important idea or feeling'. Perhaps this includes the expression of a scientific idea. Art is a visual language that inspires thought, imagination, and questioning — actions that also ground the creative work of scientists in the laboratory. In the words of Paul Robert Mecham "viewers explore the works through their own artistic imaginations, developing a unique lens through which to appreciate the art of cell biology and to realize that, for the scientist, art can become a crucial source of scientific ideas.”​

Finally, I want to discuss an interesting form of printing that I came across and spent a lot of time through trial and error trying to perform myself. The techniques in conducting it vary between artists/ scientists however, after trying a few I was successful in creating my own… leaf print. It was Yoko Shimizu, artist/researcher at the Arts Electronica Future lab, who I first discovered doing what she refers to as a Photosynth-ograph.

It gets its name from playing with the biological process photosynthesis in forming these images. I will try and explain the process by which these images are transferred onto plant leaves concisely: A black and white, negative version of the image you want should be printed onto clear plastic film. This film should be attached onto the top of a leaf and left in sunlight. This artist used young cabbage leaves. In photosynthesis 6CO2 + 6H2O, with the energy of light, produces 6O2 as a bi-product and glucose which converts into starch. The light cannot reach the plant in the black areas, so no starch is produced here. After exposure, you cut off the leaf to stop photosynthesis and boil it to soften. The next step is optional, but you can go through a chlorophyll (green pigment) extraction using ethanol. Finally, the leaf is soaked in iodine which reacts with the starch in the leaf, turning a dark colour. The leaf does not turn dark in the areas where the black negative was covering it because no starch could be produced there. The image forms on the leaf.​ I made two failed attempts at this before I went on the search for a process more attainable for my non- lab conditions.

Conclusion for Botanical Illustration -​

The fundamental science of biology is the study of cells. Initially the depictions of cells were for purely educational/ informational purposes however eventually they crossed over the line where they can now be appreciated as art as well as used as medium for art. ​​​

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Response to Cell Biology -​

As I have mentioned before, I had to find myself an alternative process for obtaining the results that I wanted in my leaf printing response, after rather disappointing first attempts...

#1

#2

Made use of what I had produced which was a leaf perfect for print making...

Pressing the iodine leaves, print making with the different colours I.e., Iodine black/dark blue when reacted with starch, iodine orange when not reacted, green of the dissolved chlorophyll. Over the next week or so the prints actually had a colour change evident by these later photos I took. This is surprising becasue they were kept under a box out of sunlight -->

I came across photographer Binh Danh[9], who although does have a very similar concept to Yoko Shimizu, goes about it in a more simplistic way that was better suited to myself because it did not require any lab conditions or chemicals (ethanol or iodine). He begins by picking a leaf, very humbly just from his mum’s garden, places it on a board with a negative directly over it, usually from his archive of magazine images, places glass over the leaf, and leaves it on the patio roof. Checking the image periodically, the process may last days-weeks and varies from precisely rendered to eerily vague.

This sounded like something I may have better chance at success with, so here are my results…

Although faint, the image was successfully transferred onto the leaf. I was SO happy about this and relieved the work had payed off.

I taped the leaf under the negative on top of an envelope so sun wouldn't affect the back. I then stuck the envelope onto the inside of my window facing outwards and left it there for a week.

I also came across an RBGE[10] blog post about a similar leaf printing process one of the greenhouse keepers had encountered. David Tricker noticed that in bright sunlight, shadows on Begonia grandis were semi-permanent. After only 5 minutes, he had a leaf print. This would be difficult for myself because I unfortunately do not have this plant but I thought that perhaps I could make use of what else this blog post offered. It explained that the effect is due to moving chloroplasts, stacking up vertically against the sides of the cell to avoid the damaging sun. This effect has been well researched in model species (Wada and Suetsugu 2004. Current Opinion in Plant Biology).

Anyway, the site provided microscopic images of this effect and I decided I would try to illustrate this just like the artists Lucy Madeline and David Goodsell that I researched.

[YET TO UPLOAD RESULTS]

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[1] https://www.zdnet.com/article/the-subtle-art-of-really-big-data-recursion-maps-the-body/​ https://outlook.wustl.edu/2014/aug/cell-biology/ [2] http://www.eniscuola.net/en/2016/06/27/the-numbers-of-nature-the-fibonacci-sequence/​ Fibonacci'ssequenceinartisticcomposition​ [3] https://www.artofthecell.com/art-of-the-cell-gallery/ [4] https://blogs.jpmsonline.com/2016/08/10/bioart-when-life-becomes-raw-material/ [5] https://lucy-madeline.format.com/lucy-madeline-celldrawings [6] https://qz.com/851166/a-scientists-paintings-reveal-the-incredible-beauty-of-the-living-cell/ [7] ​https://mayhemandmuse.com/the-organic-science-sculptures-of-bathsheba-grossman/​ https://www.symmetrymagazine.org/article/september-2005/gallery-bathsheba-grossman​ [8] https://www.craftcouncil.org/post/mark-doolittles-biological-sculptures [9] https://petapixel.com/2011/08/30/photographer-makes-chlorophyll-prints-using-leaves-and-sunlight/ [10] https://stories.rbge.org.uk/archives/22359