Steve_Miller

=The Art of Steve Miller=

Let's use this space to discuss the work of New York-based artist Steve Miller, who will be featured in the exhibition "Spiraling Inward" at Brandeis University's Rose Art Museum, September 25-December 16 2007. Please participate, as well, in our broader on line discussion of the relationship between art and scientific imaging.

See [|Miller's work on protein structure], inspired by the scientific research of Rod MacKinnon (winner of the 2003 Nobel Prize in Chemistry)

Listen to [|Michael Rush's interview with Steve Miller and Terry Berkowitz].

We'll discuss Miller and the dynamics of scientific images at our symposium, "Visualizing Science: Image-Making in the Constitution of Scientific Knowledge" (October 24, 2007)

//Comment by Mark Auslander:// It is fascinating to consider Steve Miller's work in light of a remarkable recent paper by Natasha Myers ["Animating Mechanism: Animations and the Propagation of Affect in the Lively Arts of Protein Modeling. Science Studies, Vol. 19(2006) No. 2, 6–30]. Through fieldwork with molecular biologists and X-ray crystallographers, Myers explores the dynamics of embodied performance in how scientists model protein structure and functioning. Through bodily gestures and physical contact, researchers in effect "animate" the proteins that they study, partially enlivening them even as they maintain, in principle, that proteins are to be understood as molecular machines. A comparable tension seems to run through Miller's art works, in which mechanistic and organic renditions of protein structures are subtly juxtaposed, evoking both rationalist and embodied approaches to the building blocks of life. Consider, for instance, [|Protein #342] (2003), in which abstracted representations of amino acids (below) and scientific equations (above) frame a shaded organic mass that seems to recall a clenched fist.

//Comment by Ellen Schattschneider:// It is also interesting to approach Miller in light of Myers' feminist analysis of the social practice of protein modeling. Consider [|Protein #358] (2004) Speculatively, do we see hints of female and male gendered appendages in the "body" of the protein, which seems to take form in front of our eyes out of the abstracted latticework of its scientifically mapped exoskeleton?

//Comment by Casey Golomski:// I'd like to post a few reflections on Miller's [|Protein 343], which brings up ideas of replication, reproduction and the politics of both. One cluster of molecules appears to be copied and rotated as to form a complete and perfect square. Lines are mirrored essential copies of one another as well. While there is inherent structure to a biological organism and the proteins which make up said organism, we see here the politicization of structure. The artist has purposefully structured the structure of the molecules, putting forward images (and perhaps discourses) of binarism. The core of the image is apparent. This suggests the power of a core symbol (correlating to Roy Wagner?), a core code, a core structure by which the organism builds upon to create itself. Ironically, it is the artist who has inserted the (fictitious) core in Protein 343; the artist is building the organism up from the structure, rather than the organism building itself. Agency of the organism is lost in the artist’s rendering. However, do organisms of such small scale (protein strands, plant embryos, animal and human fetuses) really possess agency which we may ground as meaningful in social relationships?

Please post further comments and reflections below, or in the discussion section above (by clicking "discussion").