Liquid Crystal Collages Gallery
One of the most amazing encounters that besets all liquid crystal scientists is their first encounter with a liquid crystal seen through the transmitted polarized light microscope. It is often the event which captures their imagination and subjects them to a life time of study of this peculiar state of matter. Observed through the microscope, liquid crystals appear to be alive. They shimmer and dance, they respond to touch, they ebb and flow, they stand up and lie down, things that solids and liquids cannot do. Each liquid crystal has a unique beauty, sometimes they have many disguises, and often experience is needed to tease out the best looking textures for observation and classification. In doing so we create textures of unparallel beauty, images that are pleasing to the eye, and to the soul.
In these sections of our galleries you will find examples of the most beautiful textures shown by liquid crystals. They are not included because of their scientific value, simply because we like them.
The textures can also provide us with textures, styles, plasticity etc for the creation of collages which we have used in art exhibitions, covers of books and journals. A selection of images is included in a second gallery. All of the pictures are available from us directly, at a small charge, as high resolution prints. Orders should be made via the contact page of the web site.
In this introduction to our art page it is appropriate to include a quotation from Martin Kemp published in Nature, 2004, 429, 506
"The selection of certain liquid crystals at certain stages in their intermediate state between solid and liquid, the setting up of the microscope to deliver certain visual qualities, and the choices involved in rendering and printing the pictures (regarding colours, textures, plasticity, scale and framing, for example) are all done to create the best effect. This is to say nothing of the way Goodby collages his images to produce images of birds and flowers. I wonder how many scientists who use visual images prominently in publishing their work have not made some kind of aesthetic choice at some time or other. Certainly anything that features on the cover of Nature, in its current format, is designed to attract attention in ways that are comparable to the use of a painting on the cover of an art journal. In the final analysis, should we worry about whether something is art or not? If it excites us, isn't that enough? My answer is drawn from a long historical perspective. The set definition of art as an aesthetic product devoid of practical function is actually comparatively recent (dating back to the late eighteenth century) and is limited to Western and Westernized societies. The art world has performed increasingly unconvincing conceptual gymnastics to accommodate everything that artists have recently thrown at it. If we stop being bothered by the question of whether something is art, and instead respond openly to the visual products that we are capable of making, we will be able both to agree with Goodby that his works are as 'good' as art, and say that any implicit competition between artists and scientist as makers of wonderful images is rather beside the point."
Martin Kemp is professor of the history of art at the
University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 1PT, UK, and
co-director of Wallace Kemp Artakt.
