Atomic Cinema

These images represent the collaborative exploration by biochemist Dr. Petra Fromme and the art/science researcher Steven J. Oscherwitz exploring this powerful scientific image >
as a groundbreaking and influential conduit to cutting-edge art/science research.

Ground Breaking technologies such as a free-electron laser at Stanford’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and macromolecular femtosecond crystallography, have allowed us to observe biochemical reactions at a temporal scale previously unimaginable. In this laboratory, accelerated electrons moving at almost the speed of light through magnets create a stream of photons.

These photons are pulsed on a femtosecond scale through a biological sample and imaged on a silicon detector, producing digital images of the diffraction pattern of the sample’s atomic structure. These are serial images that form a film of the kinetics of a biochemical reaction taking place at a speed we find difficult to comprehend.

We can now see nature in its temporal dimension, not just static visualizations of molecular biological structures abstracted away from the heat of their creation.