Soft Science "Cinema of Attractions"

Rachel Mayeri, Joe Milutis

2004 | 00:04:00 | United States | English | Color | Stereo |

Collection: Single Titles

Tags: Documentary, Science

The Soft Science “Cinema of Attractions” is a series of short movies by scientists. Commission and concept by Rachel Mayeri, electronic compositions and musical accompaniment by Joe Milutis. Many of the videos can be found on the web, posted for public appreciation of a scientist's lab work, as instructional material, or for communication to peers as data. As "data," the videos are non-narrative, scientific information. As "film," the videos are reminiscent of one shot, one reel novelties from the turn of the 19th century - some magic tricks, some actualities - which film theorist Tom Gunning dubbed the "Cinema of Attractions." In the context of art, the videos contain aesthetic, imaginative layers, embellished by Milutis' musical interpretations.

Part I: Steering, High Speed Saccade, Fly Eye, Haltere Motion Digital videos courtesy of Caltech Professor Michael Dickinson, Caltech, 2:00, 2004. Produced while conducting research on the neurobiology, aerodynamic abilities, and behavior of flies. Professor Dickinson is also striving to build a truly robotic fly.

Part II: Repressilator+Noise and The Multispore Variants, 1:00, 2004 Caltech Assistant Professor of Biology and Applied Physics Michael Elowitz genetically engineered bacterial microcolonies to glow according to different genetic circuits. The colors in these videos are determined by the expression of fluorescent proteins copied from jellyfish.

Part III: (1) Spread the Aliquot over the Agar Plate Surface, (2) Non-Linear Shape Statistics in Tracking, and (3) Carbon Nanotube Gears, 1:00, 2004 Video sources: (1) Microbiology Class for Undergrads at Brunel University, (2) Daniel Cremers, Timo Kohlberger, and Christoph Schnorr at UCLA (3) Jie Han, Al Globus, Richard Jaffe, Glenn Deardorff at NASA 

This title is only available on Soft Science.