ARTS TEXT NICOLE KONECKE
DESIGN ANNA BRINKHUIS
ILLUSTRATION NICOLE KONECKE
Micropaintings, Diatoms, and Transdimensional Travel Groups
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Communicating climate change through art Suppose I were to tell you I have been reinvigorated with wonder, that I fell in love again with the world. Suppose I were to say we became reacquainted amidst a stream of light funneled through a dark barrel and refracted through a glass lens. Suppose I learned just how beautiful ordinary things are when you look at them from a different perspective, when you zoom in past the outer barrier. It is blank at the start. Then you turn the knob slowly and a haze of color appears. Then, a new world opens up to you, exploding as if you are watching a time lapse of a rose blooming. Stooped over the microscope, I am a child experiencing autumn for the first time, stupefied by the burst of warm tones, reawakened by the cool, refreshing breeze. For some time, I have been creating multi-dimensional micropaintings in response to the effects of human behavior on the environment. The first layer placed on the microscope slide is opaque, and then a thin piece of glass—a slide cover—is positioned over top. I continue to mount more paint on these slide covers, adding water to the paint as the stratification builds for translucency and depth. When placed under the
THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT
microscope, you can move through each layer as if sinking to the bottom of the sea: the first layers are imbued with color and high resolution, but as you move inward, the picture becomes less visible and obscures. Aside from posing as an imaginative response to the abuse our planet has endured, these micropaintings act as exhibitions where art and science are engaged in a symbiotic relationship. One slide speaks to how methane and plastics are deposited into the air and ocean, how they fill our respiratory systems with toxins and marble the bodies of nonhuman species with malignant growths. Another slide depicts the bleaching of the Great Barrier reef resulting from intemperate fishing and tourism that have compounded the threat of global warming and ocean acidification. As you move through the layers, you are traversing space and time, starting at the present and then diving into the past. The sea is home to an entanglement of anemones, kelp, and tubeworms ensnared by synthetic polymers. Chemicals contained in plastics cast into the ocean interact with these organisms with parasitic intentions. In the first layer of the painting, you are shown how these habitats are presently met with the unwelcome guests of radiation, plastics, and fossil fuels, killing species more rapidly than they are renewed. But a deeper submersion into the painting will introduce you to coral colonies as they once were: a colorful metropolis of diverse species braided together in procreative arenas in a balanced, continuous, and natural cycle of living and dying. +++ My work with microscope slides and paint was inspired by an early microscopist practice of arranging diatoms for the purpose of generating fine art. Diatoms are single-celled algae that range from 20–200 microns in length. One hundred diatoms would fit into the size of a comma in normal typeface—size 12, Times
New Roman. In the late 1800s, microscopist J.D. Möller used a single hog’s eyelash glued to a pencil to arrange diatoms in spectacular geometric designs and rectilinear organizations often resembling intricate mandalas. These were constellations of the artistic consciousness, fixated on showcasing beauty for beauty’s sake. These diatom arrangements were frequently exhibited at social gatherings and were said to evoke a profound sense of awe in the viewer, a reawakened appreciation for the diversity of lifeforms populating the Earth that are beyond our field of vision. More recently, diatoms have been implemented as a tool to map a history of climate change. When looking at a diatom through the microscope, you are transported to a distant Earth, an unfamiliar Earth, an Earth of interconnected processes and ecosystems, generating new life forms across space and time. Diatoms are ancestors of the sea, capturing moments of Earth’s climate history. Changes in the combination of fresh and sea water—induced by rises in sea levels and water management—can be hypothesized through the evaluation of diatom remains. Because they are preserved in layered sediment that contain parts of the ecosystem in which they once lived, diatoms function as a portal to a previous version of the Earth, allowing us to improve our understanding of the planet’s evolution. While Möller and I have taken the microscopic approach to access smaller dimensions— preserving Earth’s smaller beauties in intricate arrangements or painting microscope slides to call attention to the widespread impacts of climate change—artist Lee Hunter has been zooming out, projecting into the future. Through this macroscopic lens, Hunter envisions a future where humans have reached the climax of environmental destruction and face consequences that impede both everyday life and the ability to carry out scientific endeavors such as space travel. In Hunter’s fictional future, space travel has been terminated as Earth can no longer supply the necessary resources to support cosmic