The title says it all, really. Behold, some viruses made out of glass.
Who says you can’t get a crystal structure of a whole virus?
The sculptures are the work of artist Luke Jerram, in collaboration with a team of Bristol scientists and glass blowers. Each piece represents a different killer virus, including HIV, SARS and swine flu. Jerram notes that his sculptures are uncoloured, in contrast to the usual representations of viruses.
If some images are coloured for scientific purposes, and others altered simply for aesthetic reasons, how can a viewer tell the difference? How many people believe viruses are brightly coloured? Are there any colour conventions and what kind of ‘presence’ do pseudocoloured images have that ‘naturally’ coloured specimens don’t?
Interesting question. Anyone have any opinions? I wouldn’t have thought choice of colour would make much difference to my understanding of a virus, but here are some examples of HIV wrapped up in different hues.
Close up of E. coli
A solo exhibition of Luke’s delicate glass sculptures runs at the new Smithfield Gallery in London from 22 September to 3 October. Just don’t wear a large rucksack.
Images pulled in from Luke’s website, which is really worth a read.
Three words: Blaschka Glass Models
http://tr.im/yvjq
http://tr.im/yvjr
Oh Karen, that’s wonderful. I’d never heard of these before. The first link says: “Once completed, the Museum hopes to highlight the scientific, educational and aesthetic appeal of these models in a spectacular exhibition.” Do you know how that’s going, and when the exhibition might take place?
We’ve had pics of the Blaschka’s work on NN before.
Matt, the viruses are so cool!! Wish I could go see them.
Ha, I even left a comment. My memory is fragile as glass.
Heh – and Karen’s link helps to answer my question on Anna’s post on the whereabouts of the marine invertebrate models…
Glad to see we’ve come full circle! I think the virus glass models are absolutely amazing. Somewhere, there is even a video of the artist blowing glass to make them.
The coloring thing is weird. I see the point he is trying to make, but it’s not like the glass he used is uniform either. There is still a distinction in the texture of the glass between the core and the envelope of the virus. The artist is still differentiating the two, just not in color. Certainly the viral core is more electron dense when viewed under an EM scope that the stuff surrounding it, so this representation could be seen as accurate. Either way, the glass pieces are stunning (they really really are), regardless of whether the artist’s statement about the representation of viruses/pathogens in the media and textbooks has any traction.
Very cool. Are they going to travel at some point? I would love to see them live (no pun intended).