GMU:Winning natural habitats/Natalia Gay Pintado

Explorations of the Monad

The sensation of looking through a telescope into the vastness of the night might also be experienced under the light of the microscope. The microscope functions as a portal to the sub-universe of the micro, of organised forms hidden in the larger terms of "more complex" organisms or elements.

According to the philosopher Leibniz, everything that exists is derived from an initial indivisible substance called monad, which by its qualities lacks figure, extension, beginning or end. Constant contraction and collision of this substance or energy, reacting with each other, creates compound substances which are what we know as reality.

The book offers a magnified look at microscopic life, revealing a hidden world and inviting to reflect on the complexity of life at its tiniest level. Through structures found under the microscope, the idea of monad is explored by speculating on its shape, texture and colours. The images were taken with the aid of the microscope and extracted from samples of different water found in Weimar including ponds around Ilm park and hidden fountains.

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Images are created to tell stories

But we can make images have a memory of their own.

What happens when we use a scientific image and generate a narrative with them, a narrative in intimacy.

The scientific image becomes the poetic