Animate Biology: Data, Visualization, and Life’s Moving Image Adam J. Nocek A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Washington 2015 Reading Committee: Phillip Thurtle, Chair James Tweedie Robert Mitchell Program Authorized to Offer Degree: Comparative Literature ©Copyright 2015 Adam J. Nocek University of Washington Abstract Animate Biology: Data, Visualization, and Life’s Moving Image Adam J. Nocek Chair of the Supervisory Committee: Associate Professor Phillip Thurtle Animate Biology: Data, Visualization, and Life’s Moving Image examines how biologists are using 3D animation technologies developed by the entertainment industry (Pixar and DreamWorks) to visualize biological data sets. Over the course of four chapters, the project develops a concept of scientific aesthetics in order to counter the neoliberalization of these visualization practices. The first chapter, “Molecular Control,” shows how there is significant controversy among scientists regarding the scientific value of molecular animations, since it is unclear whether they faithfully depict biological data. Drawing on Lorraine Daston and Peter Galison’s scholarship on the history of scientific visualization, the dissertation intervenes in this debate by clarifying what the criteria are for determining the scientific value of images. The study demonstrates that representation, instead of objectivity, is the epistemic norm that determines the scientific value of images, and that the norm of representation is fully operative in 3D molecular animations. I argue that what is often missed in debates over scientific imaging is that representation has undergone many transformations in the history of scientific epistemology, and that it now obeys the logic of flexibility and competition that exemplifies neoliberal market values. In short, the project contends that (1) molecular animations have “scientific value” inasmuch as they adhere to the norm of representation in the age of neoliberalized technoscience, and that (2) representation does not exhaust the meaning of today’s molecular animations. Using the genealogical methods that were first introduced by Michel Foucault, and that have proven so influential for media and science studies scholars, the remaining three chapters of the dissertation forge a genealogy for scientific visualization that does not rely on the values of representation; it then uses this as a framework for promoting non-representational values in scientific animation. Chapter Two, “The Micro and the Nano: New Scales of Representation,” investigates how early twentieth-century microcinematography and late-twentieth and early twenty-first-century nanoimaging appear to undermine representational values by promoting aesthetic ones. The chapter contends, however, that neither micro nor nano imaging thwart representation as the premiere value in scientific imaging, and that each practice upholds representation by finding ways to incorporate aesthetics into its logic. The third and fourth chapters of the dissertation inquire into whether there are instances of visual aesthetics in science that cannot be incorporated into representational values. To this end, Chapter Three, “The Scientific Avant-Garde,” considers work from a scientific filmmaker who has always been on the fringes of scientific acceptability: Jean Painlevé. The study traces the development of Surrealist and Dadaist techniques in his scientific cinema, and argues that they enable his work to express that “Nature” is always in excess of the categories used to represent it. Chapter Four, “A Case for Cinematic Beauty,” then situates Painlevé’s work within a history of aesthetic philosophy that draws from Deleuze’s Kantian-inspired aesthetics. In particular, the chapter examines how Deleuze reverses the privilege given to Kant’s notion of “sublime” over the “beautiful” in Continental aesthetics, and then contends that the beautiful is the basis for Deleuze’s own aesthetic ontology, in which there is always an excess of sensibility over a priori concepts. The chapter concludes by arguing that Painlevé’s cinema expresses a similar aesthetic vision. The conclusion of the dissertation, “Molecular Aesthetics,” argues that Painlevé’s work can help cultivate non-representational values in molecular animation. What goes unnoticed about molecular animation, I contend, is that it “de-familiarizes” biological data for scientists: it gives spatial and temporal dimensions to what have none. Drawing connections to Painlevé’s work, the project argues that molecular animations generate aesthetic experiences of data without conceptual correlates, and then demonstrates how they are transformed into what can produce neoliberal value. The dissertation ultimately contends that the seeds for aesthetic resistance to neoliberalized technoscience are already implicit in molecular animation. Overall, the project makes a significant intervention into the visual culture of science and technology by forging a genealogy for “old” and “new” uses of visual media in science that challenges the neoliberalization of value production. In doing so, the project also brings the importance of computer animation for the critical study of science and technology, media, and Continental philosophy into full view. Acknowledgments The idea for this dissertation emerged out of series of intellectual exchanges I have had with colleagues and mentors over the past seven years. This project would not have been possible without the guidance and friendship of Phillip Thurtle, who encouraged me, from start to finish, to understand biology not simply as discipline, but as a way of thinking about and within life. It is under these auspices, that he first introduced me to animation as a way of orienting oneself within life. I also could not have completed this project without mentorship from my friends within the Deleuze community: Gregory Flaxman and Gregg Lambert. From them, I learned how the real challenge is to think with Deleuze and not about him. And most of all, I want to thank my wife, Stacey Moran Nocek. She challenges and transforms my thinking every day. Because of her, I’m a thinker. She is feminist, poet, and philosopher, and I owe every bit of creativity in this work to her. And finally, this work would not have been possible without the unabiding love, laugher, and joy of the two greatest gifts in my life: my daughters, Fiona and Ivy. Contents Introduction: Tracing New Media Histories ................................................................................... 1 Chapter 1: Molecular Control ....................................................................................................... 16 1.1 Visualizing the Invisible ........................................................................................................................... 16 1.2 Digital Capital .............................................................................................................................................. 32 1.3 Life and Time Under the Control of Cybernetic Machines .......................................................... 37 1.4 Bad Films ....................................................................................................................................................... 43 1.5 Where Does This Leave Us? ................................................................................................................... 64 Chapter 2: The Micro and the Nano: New Scales of Representation ........................................... 71 2.1. Minor Histories ........................................................................................................................................... 71 2.2 The Micro ...................................................................................................................................................... 76 2.3. The Nano ...................................................................................................................................................... 97 Chapter 3: The Scientific Avant-Garde ...................................................................................... 118 3.1 Two False Starts, or A New Research Trajectory? ........................................................................ 118 3.2 Jean Painlevé: Scientist, Artist, Philosopher .................................................................................... 122 3.3 Research Methods ..................................................................................................................................... 129 3.4 The Surreal, the Fragmented, and the Ideal ...................................................................................... 142 Chapter 4: A Case for Cinematic Beauty .................................................................................... 160 4.1. Deleuze on Kant on Beauty .................................................................................................................. 162 4.2. Bio(im)political Aesthetics ................................................................................................................... 178 Conclusion: Molecular Aesthetics .............................................................................................. 195 Bibliography ............................................................................................................................... 207 Filmography ...............................................................................................................................