Believing in the ESS: Scale, vision, and Pioneering
Author
Editor
- Thomas Kaiserfeld
- Tom O'Dell
Summary, in English
Max Liljefors, Art History and Visual Studies
Technologization of Vision, Visualization of knowledge: The Role of “The Visual” in Conceptualizing ESS.
ESS is popularly described as a gigantic microscope, which will use neutrons instead of ordinary light to let us see inside matter on the subatomic level. Other metaphors also foreground vision: “Seeing with neutron eyes”, and “Neutrons give the big picture” are examples from information brochures.
This emphasis on vision is typical of what the philosopher of science Don Ihde calls the visualism in science today, i.e. the tendency to represent data in pictures rather than in text or numbers. However, “visualization” means something else in techno-scientific contexts like ESS than in everyday life. Rarely is it about uncovering things in their “natural appearance”, since particles imperceptible by human vision do not, by nature, “appear” at all. Instead complex instruments and software produce statistical maps that represent reality according to very different principles than ordinary photographs. Nonetheless, ESS is commonly understood to be about “seeing”.
My project examines how “the visual” is mobilized, in texts and in pictures, to bridge the divide between technoscience and the general public, and to inscribe cultural meaning onto the inner structure of matter.
Technologization of Vision, Visualization of knowledge: The Role of “The Visual” in Conceptualizing ESS.
ESS is popularly described as a gigantic microscope, which will use neutrons instead of ordinary light to let us see inside matter on the subatomic level. Other metaphors also foreground vision: “Seeing with neutron eyes”, and “Neutrons give the big picture” are examples from information brochures.
This emphasis on vision is typical of what the philosopher of science Don Ihde calls the visualism in science today, i.e. the tendency to represent data in pictures rather than in text or numbers. However, “visualization” means something else in techno-scientific contexts like ESS than in everyday life. Rarely is it about uncovering things in their “natural appearance”, since particles imperceptible by human vision do not, by nature, “appear” at all. Instead complex instruments and software produce statistical maps that represent reality according to very different principles than ordinary photographs. Nonetheless, ESS is commonly understood to be about “seeing”.
My project examines how “the visual” is mobilized, in texts and in pictures, to bridge the divide between technoscience and the general public, and to inscribe cultural meaning onto the inner structure of matter.
Department/s
Publishing year
2013
Language
English
Pages
187-203
Publication/Series
Legitimizing ESS. Big Science as a Collaboration Across Boundaries.
Document type
Book chapter
Publisher
Nordic Academic Press
Topic
- Art History
Keywords
- visual culture
- scientific visualizations
- science communication
- ESS
Status
Published
ISBN/ISSN/Other
- ISBN: 978-91-87351-10-5