微观世界之美 · Rogan Brown 的细菌剪纸艺术

艺术家

Rogan Brown

手工剪纸可以说是在纸片上用解剖刀“解剖”。这是一个从大肠杆菌和沙门氏菌得到灵感，做成的巨大微生物外形。它长112厘米/44英寸，是实际细菌大小的50万倍。这一设计是由英国伊甸园工程（

)委任的，属于5月21日开幕的展出中的一项，展览名为“看不见的你们”，探索了存活在我们身体内外的庞大细菌群落。

“我被要求创造一些视觉效果惊人的东西，能够吸引公众的想象和注意力。于是制造了一种科幻超现实主义作品，一种细节观察和纯粹想象的混合物。作品的创造不仅受到细菌图示法和电子显微图像的激发，而且受到19世纪伟大的浪漫主义诗人威廉•布莱克的诗句启发：

一颗沙里看出一个世界

一朵野花里一个天堂

把无限放在你的手掌上

永恒在刹那间收藏。

简言之我的目标是展示并探索巨大世界里存在于自然界各个层面的极为复杂的细节，但它们中的大部分并不显示在我们眼前。”

大肠杆菌和沙门氏菌通过触角一样的被称为“鞭毛”的附属物得以像海蜇或章鱼一样游弋，在肠道中推进自己。覆盖细菌外壳的被称为菌毛的刺猬头状结构使细菌得以依附在肠道壁上。“我显然修饰了作品的这些方面，以使它在视觉上能给人留下更深的印象，或许还有点吓人，”布朗又说道。然而值得一提的是，人体内绝大部分细菌完全是良性的，以一种科学家们才刚开始了解的方式在促进我们身体机能的运作。伊甸展出的目的是提高公众对于这一丰富又复杂的科学领域的认识，这一领域对我们所有人都至关重要。

Artist

Rogan Brown

’s latest  sculpture, “Cut Microbe”, took over four months of painstaking work to hand cut or perhaps “dissect” with a scalpel knife from sheets of paper. It is a gigantic microbial form inspired by ecoli and salmonella bacteria and at 112cms/44 inches long, half a million times bigger than the real thing. It was commissioned by the Eden Project (

) in the UK  to be part of an exhibition opening  May 21 entitled “The Invisible You”, which explores the vast colony of bacteria that lives in and on our bodies.

“I was asked to create something visually stunning that would catch the imagination and attention of the public. What I have produced  is a kind of Scientific Surrealism, a blend of detailed observation and pure imagination. I was inspired in making this piece not only by diagrammatic representations and electron micrograph images of bacteria but also by the words of that great 19th century Romantic poet William Blake:

To see a World in a Grain of Sand

And a Heaven in a Wild Flower

Hold Infinity in the Palm of Your Hand

And Eternity in an Hour

In short my aim was to expose and explore the vast world of incredibly intricate detail that exists at every level of scale in nature but most of which is hidden from our eyes.”

Both ecoli and salmonella bacteria propel themselves through the intestinal tract thanks to tentacle-like appendages called “flagella” that allow them to swim much like a jelly fish or an octopus. Spiky hair-like structures called “pili” covering the microbes’ outer shell are used to attach themselves to the intestinal wall. “I’ve clearly embellished these aspects of the bug in order to make it more visually impressive and perhaps also a little frightening,” Brown adds. However, it is important to note that the vast majority of bacteria in the human body are completely benign, helping our bodies  to function in ways that scientists are only now beginning to understand. The purpose of the Eden exhibition is to raise public awareness of this rich and complex field of science that is so crucial to us all.

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