I was walking around Kendall Square at night recently for the first time in a while, and was dumbstruck by the beauty and resonance of the huge installation in the lobby of MIT's Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research. What a great intersection of art and science: microscopic images from cancer research blown up into seven-foot diameter circles, printed on fabric and placed over light boxes so they glow with rich color and clarity.
After reading an article in the Boston Globe from when the installation was launched, I understand that it was the result of a contest for scientific images - one that will be renewed every six months.
I was drawn into this same sort of imagery while making my documentary Indelible Lalita: the beauty of modern medical imaging technology to show the inner workings of our bodies. The ecocardiograms, CT scans, ultrasounds, and colonoscopies I filmed were all translating purely physical information into into pictures. But somehow I couldn't help but feel something of my subject Lalita's spirit in there.
I was hoping to learn more about the artist behind the Koch Institute exhibit, but only found a reference to John Durant, director of the MIT Museum, who advised the Institute on its display space. The Institute's public galleries include videos with people talking about cancer; a huge floor mosaic depicting the buildings of MIT (fabricated in a week by robots working for Artaic!), and a 40-foot mural delineating the pathways and mutations of cancer cells. A wonderful job curating this public/private space.