The Molecular Elusive

From Boyle’s seventeenth-century corpuscles to modern discussions of the reality of shape as a molecular property, philosophers have debated the ontology of molecules and atoms and the meanings embedded in how we envision them. In the realm of nanotechnology, the discussion has shifted from what we once knew to be invisible to what it means to “see” ultimately unseeable atoms and molecules using complex visualization technologies; a shift that reflects much of the previous cultural debate about the truth-value of photography. This talk focuses on a more neglected aspect of molecular visualization: the ways in which chemists represent the elusive and transient, and the aesthetics of these representations. Chemistry by its very nature is a science of transformation; reactions begin with knowable starting materials and end with tangible products; yet, for chemists it is often the non-isolable molecular species that exist en route from these stable endpointsthat are particularly fascinating. These immaterial unstable states can only be imagined through drawn or computationally rendered molecular depictions. How chemists map chemical instability into the legible domain of molecular representations and the associative aesthetics of such representations are my focus. Specifically, I will examine two aspects of the molecular elusive: systems that exist only in extremely constrained circumstances, and once released from those conditions transform into more stable species; and transition states thatcan only be postulated and never exist as discrete isolable species.

Tami Spector is a professor of organic chemistry at the University of San Francisco. Her scientific work focused on fluorocarbons, strained ring organics, and the molecular dynamics and free energy calculations of biomolecules.  She currently presents and publishes on molecular aesthetics, the visual image of chemistry, the intersections of chemistry and contemporary visual art and nanoaesthetics, most recently publishing “The Aesthetics of Molecular Forms” in Molecular Aesthetics. She co-curated “Chemistry in Art: A Virtual Exhibition” (www.hyle.org/art/cia/), co-edited the MIT/Leonardo e-book Art and Atoms and hosted its accompanying MIT Press podcast (www.mitpressjournals.org/page/podcast_episode20_LEON).  She serves on the HYLE editorial board andLeonardo/International Society for Art, Science and Technology governing and editorial boards, co-hosts the bimonthly USF Leonardo Arts Sciences Evening Rendezvous (LASER), and is the co-editor of the on-going special section “Art and Atoms” for Leonardo Journal.