Painting with light: the darkroom of nature
— New photographic approaches

This project explores connections and synergies between
nanoscience and photography. The goal has been to shine light on the scientific process and the scientists themselves, as well as to explore new photographic approaches inspired by research at the Institute.

Prof. Jessica Clough and Claudia Christen

The word “photography” is derived from the Greek for “drawing with light.”
Compared to other artistic mediums, photography has advanced more in step with paradigms in technology that enable light to be captured, from the earliest wet plate techniques to today’s digital cameras.

This NanoARTS tandem project paired Claudia Christen, a photographer who works both digitally and in analogue, and Dr. Jessica Clough, a chemist developing optically responsive polymers.

Together, they created art-science works which highlight the shared chemical origins of photography and the high-tech research at the Adolphe Merkle Institute. In addition, the team developed new methods to draw with light based on mechano-responsive molecules that give out light when activated by force, a process directly related to the research of the scientist.

This synergistic collaboration brought a new function and meaning to the materials from the scientist’s research and offered unique creative opportunities to the artist, in addition to laying the foundations for further outreach initiatives.

In many of the research projects at the AMI, inspiration comes from nature’s materials, such as biologically-inspired building blocks, which feature in this project’s final artworks via different layering approaches.

In summary, the team sought to put forth a new way of seeing by exploring an innovative technique in photography merging science and art, as well as incorporating their interdisciplinary approaches and professional backgrounds to create a multi-layered project.

The goal of the team was to represent innovation within both nanotechnology and photography, focusing on the following principles upon which the experiments were based:

1. Painting with light (photography)

2. Corresponding process at the Adolphe Merkle Institute using biological materials that are based
on nature, such as plants and insects

3. Nano-based imagery taken with the microscope and recorded in the lab of materials

4. Laboratory as an artist and scientist

5. Low-tech plus high-tech

Acknowledgements

Thank you to Adolphe Merkle Institute and Pro Helvetia for the generous support provided through the grant.

Lukas Badertscher (Graphicart), Cyrille Boinay, Sofía Martín Caba, Scott Capper, Prof. Jessica M. Clough, Dr. Deniz Daser, Prof. Alke Fink, Roman Fortunatus, Luca Grillo, Ursula Heidelberg (Laboratorium), Dome Imdorf (Drucki Reitschule), René Iseli, Prof. Michael Mayer, Chaninya Mak-iad, Dr. Pau Molet Bachs, Dr. Lucas Montero, Ilaria Onori, Sacha Pfander (Gaffuri), Carolina Pierucci, Prof. Barbara Rothen-Rutishauser, Iulia Scarlat, Sonja Schachinger, Claudia Schnugg, Prof. Ullrich Steiner, Ingeborg Reichle, Ariane Rippstein, Oana Romocea, Prof. Christoph Weder