Scientists and artists explore links between current developments in molecular science and the visual arts. Thanks to advances in molecular science and microscopy, we can visualize matter on a nanoscale, and structures not visible to the naked eye can be visualized and characterized. The fact that technology allows us to transcend the limits of natural perception and see what was previously unseeable creates a new dimension of aesthetic experience and practice: molecular aesthetics. This book, drawing on an exhibit and symposium at ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe, documents aesthetic developments in what Félix Guattari called the “molecular revolution.” Just as artists in the Bauhaus movement began to use such industrial materials as metal, Plexiglas, and alloys as raw materials, artists today have access to new realms of the molecular and nano. The industrial aesthetic of machinery and material has been transformed into an aesthetic of media and molecules. Molecular Aesthetics suggests ways in which art can draw inspiration from the molecular sciences—and ways in which science can use art to make experimental results more intelligible and comprehensible. The authors of the essays collected in the book discuss the creation of molecules of remarkable beauty and the functional properties that stem from a few geometrical principles of molecular design; address the history of molecular structure representation; examine the meaning of molecular aesthetics for scientists; and compare chemical structures to artworks.

The Beauty of Chemistry in the Words of Writers and in the Hands of Scientists, by Margherita Venturi, Enrico Marchi und Vincenzo Balzani Living in a Cage Is a Restricted Privilege, by Luigi Fabbrizzi Inner and Outer Beauty, by Kenneth N. Raymond und Casey J. Brown The Mechanical Bond: A Work of Art, by Carson J. Bruns und J. Fraser Stoddart The Beauty of Knots at the Molecular Level, by Jean-Pierre Sauvage und David B. Amabilino

Nobel laureate Roald Hoffmann's contributions to chemistry are well known. Less well known, however, is that over a career that spans nearly fifty years, Hoffmann has thought and written extensively about a wide variety of other topics, such as chemistry's relationship to philosophy, literature, and the arts, including the nature of chemical reasoning, the role of symbolism and writing in science, and the relationship between art and craft and science. In Roald Hoffmann on the Philosophy, Art, and Science of Chemistry, Jeffrey Kovac and Michael Weisberg bring together twenty-eight of Hoffmann's most important essays. Gathered here are Hoffmann's most philosophically significant and interesting essays and lectures, many of which are not widely accessible. In essays such as "Why Buy That Theory," "Nearly Circular Reasoning," "How Should Chemists Think," "The Metaphor, Unchained," "Art in Science," and "Molecular Beauty," we find the mature reflections of one of America's leading scientists. Organized under the general headings of Chemical Reasoning and Explanation, Writing and Communicating, Art and Science, Education, and Ethics, these stimulating essays provide invaluable insight into the teaching and practice of science.

The Taste of Art offers a sample of scholarly essays that examine the role of food in Western contemporary art practices. The contributors are scholars from a range of disciplines, including art history, philosophy, film studies, and history. As a whole, the volume illustrates how artists engage with food as matter and process in order to explore alternative aesthetic strategies and indicate countercultural shifts in society. The collection opens by exploring the theoretical intersections of art and food, food art’s historical root in Futurism, and the ways in which food carries gendered meaning in popular film. Subsequent sections analyze the ways in which artists challenge mainstream ideas through food in a variety of scenarios. Beginning from a focus on the body and subjectivity, the authors zoom out to look at the domestic sphere, and finally the public sphere. Here are essays that study a range of artists including, among others, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Daniel Spoerri, Dieter Roth, Joseph Beuys, Al Ruppersberg, Alison Knowles, Martha Rosler, Robin Weltsch, Vicki Hodgetts, Paul McCarthy, Luciano Fabro, Carries Mae Weems, Peter Fischli and David Weiss, Janine Antoni, Elżbieta Jabłońska, Liza Lou, Tom Marioni, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Michael Rakowitz, and Natalie Jeremijenko.

Ambitious, controversial and absorbing, God and the Universe tackles the highly-charged issue of God's relevance in the light of new scientific thinking on cosmology. Engaging with poststructuralism, ethics, mathematics, and philosophy through the ages, this persuasively argued book reinvigorates religious debate for the new millennium.

Nuclear Quantum Effects from Bio to Physical Chemistry

Inspired by the ecosophical writings of Felix Guattari, this book explores the many ways that aesthetics – in the forms of visual art, film, sculpture, painting, literature, and the screenplay – can act as catalysts, allowing us to see the world differently, beyond traditional modes of representation. This is in direct parallel to Guattari's own attempt to break down the 19th century Kantian dialectic between man, art, and world, in favour of a non-hierarchical, transversal approach, to produce a more ethical and ecologically sensitive world view. Each chapter author analyses artworks which critique capitalism's industrial devastation of the environment, while at the same time offering affirmative, imaginative futures suggested by art. Including contributions from philosophers, film theorists and artists, this book asks: How can we interact with the world in a non-dominant and non-destructive way? How can art catalyze new ethical relations with non-human entities and the environment? And, crucially, what part can philosophy play in rethinking these structures of interaction?

Why Science Needs Art explores the complex relationship between these seemingly polarised fields. Reflecting on a time when art and science were considered inseparable and symbiotic pursuits, the book discusses how they have historically informed and influenced each other, before considering how public perception of the relationship between these disciplines has fundamentally changed. Science and art have something very important in common: they both seek to reduce something infinitely complex to something simpler. Using examples from diverse areas including microscopy, brain injury, classical art, and data visualization, the book delves into the history of the intersection of these two disciplines, before considering current tensions between the fields. The emerging field of neuroaesthetics and its attempts to scientifically understand what humans find beautiful is also explored, suggesting ways in which the relationship between art and science may return to a more co-operative state in the future. Why Science Needs Art provides an essential insight into the relationship between art and science in an appealing and relevant way. Featuring colorful examples throughout, the book will be of interest to students and researchers of neuroaesthetics and visual perception, as well as all those wanting to discover more about the complex and exciting intersection of art and science.

Stem cells have the ability to differentiate into cells that are found throughout the body. This fundamental property of stem cells suggests that they can potentially be used to replace degenerative cells within the body, and regenerate the functional capacity of organ systems that have deteriorated because of disease or aging. This authoritative textbook provides an overview of the latest advances in the field of stem cell biology, spanning topics that include nuclear reprogramming, somatic cell cloning, and determinants of cell fate; embryonic stem cells for hematopoietic and pancreatic repair; adult stem cells for cardiovascular, neural, renal, and hepatic repair; and manufacturing of stem cells for clinical use.

The Routledge Companion to Critical Approaches to Contemporary Architecture convenes a wide array of critical voices from architecture, art history, urbanism, geography, anthropology, media and performance studies, computer science, bio-engineering, environmental studies, and sociology that help us understand the meaning and significance of global architecture of the twenty-first century. New chapters by 36 contributors illustrated with over 140 black-and-white images are assembled in six parts concerning both real and virtual spaces: design, materiality, alterity, technologies, cityscapes, and practice.