Animating Molecular Life: An Interview with Natasha Myers

Abstract

In this interview, conducted by special issue co-editor Joel McKim, anthropologist Natasha Myers discusses her ethnographic exploration of how protein modellers attempt to render visible the nano-scale molecular structures that make up cellular life. Myers reflects on the ways these scientists make use of computer animation and other forms of embodied knowledge (including movement) as essential tools that allow them ‘to see beyond the limits of vision’. McKim and Myers discuss the tensions that arise when the goal of scientific accuracy meets the forms of aesthetics and style intrinsic to these activities of modelling. Myers identifies the ‘lively mechanism’ involved in the animated machines generated by the molecular scientists she observes.