Beyond Resolution
v1.0 by: Michael Takeo Magruder, 2025
An exhibition exploring the transformation of scientific imaging data using AI models and techniques derived from contemporary digital arts practice.
About the Project:
Beyond Resolution is an arts-research project and exhibition exploring the commonalities and emergent possibilities that reside at the intersection of art and science. It represents the culmination of the artist's yearlong residency at Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory (MDIBL) and showcases the creative outcomes of his collaborative exchanges with the institute's distinguished scientific community.
The focus of the exhibition is two newly commissioned artworks that have been produced using the leading-edge systems of the Laboratory's Light Microscopy Facility. Each work is generated from actual scientific research data that has been transformed using Artificial Intelligence (AI) models and techniques derived from contemporary digital arts practice. These aesthetic processes render spatial and temporal details that extend beyond the hard limits of traditional imaging technologies, allowing viewers to peer beyond the horizons offered by even today's most advanced microscopes.
Exhibition Documentation:
Beyond Resolution — How Do We Visualize What We Cannot See?
The challenging relationship between art and science is the basis for the «Art Meets Science» program at MDI Biological Laboratory. How does an artist experience the scientific process? How does the artistic mind use the findings and discoveries of scientific experiments? Artists and scientists strive to grasp the world around us, with the hopes of understanding nature and its complex patterns and mechanisms. Both scientists and artists grapple with the problem to visualize what they discover—how to bridge the gap between knowledge and communication.
Artist Michael Takeo Magruder spent a year collaborating with MDIBL, immersing himself in scientific research, exchanging ideas with scientists, and exploring their questions and methods. In turn, he used his own artistic approach to create thought-provoking works that challenge and inspire. Art and Science, Art about Science, or Art in Science?
From the start, Takeo was captivated by the advanced imaging techniques used at MDIBL, a leader in microscopy and research on tissue regeneration and blood vessel formation. Our scientists shift the frontiers of visibility by building cutting-edge microscopes, allowing previously unseen structures to be revealed and thereby developing an understanding of biological mechanisms.
Takeo worked alongside the explorers of the microscopic world at MDIBL. He translated and transformed their methods and their findings into his world of technology and art. The artwork in this exhibition is the result of his artistic journey, showing the outcome of his experiments, how he visualizes his findings, and how artwork communicates an artistic analysis of scientific data and methodology. His art confronts us with other ways to see the world. It makes us reflect on our experiments, challenges our assumptions, and sheds new light on the scientific endeavor.
curatorial statement by Dr Hermann Haller, Scientist and President, MDIBL
Artworks:
hiPSC Renal Organoid [expanded]
On the one hand, using AI in this fashion is cutting edge. On the other, it taps into a long history of artistic, philosophical, and scientific «speculation»—from the Latin verb «specere», meaning to look at or see. During the 15th century, Renaissance masters including Piero della Francesca, Paolo Uccello, and Leonardo da Vinci utilized mathematical calculations of linear perspective to create newly realistic masterpieces. In the 17th century, the philosopher René Descartes published extensively on the nascent science of optics, while the philosopher Baruch Spinoza made his living as an accomplished lens grinder for microscopes and telescopes. And it was Galileo's practical advances in telescope design that enabled his astronomical discoveries.
By using AI to imagine what lies beyond the present limits of microscopy, Takeo challenges scientists to step back from the bench, as it were, and consider possibilities they have not yet observed. There is an intrinsic risk to speculating about the unseen—just think of market speculation—but in the hands of committed scientists, risk can be responsible, indeed indispensable. Scientific speculation continually seeks the balance of confirmation, turning projection to validation. What Takeo has generated may be beyond resolution today, but not for long.
reflection by Prof Aaron Rosen, PhD (Cantab)
In Dialogue with:
Dr Hermann Haller [ MDIBL project curation ] . Dr Marko Pende [ MDIBL scientific collaboration (Casper Zebrafish) ] . Dr Cory Johnson & Hannah Somers [ MDIBL scientific collaboration (hiPSC Renal Organoid) ]
With Thanks to:
Emily Burke [ MDIBL project development-coordination ] . Light Microscopy Facility, MDIBL [ research infrastructure ] . Dr Prayag Murawala [ MDIBL host laboratory (Casper Zebrafish) ] . Jerilyn Bowers [ MDIBL project support ]. Frederick Bever [ MDIBL project pr ] . Rebecca Woods [ MDIBL exhibition production ] . Roy McMorran & Tom Rush [ MDIBL exhibition support ] . Emma Puente [ logistics support ] . Dr Aaron Rosen [ curatorial consultation ]
Supported by:
Beyond Resolution was commissioned and produced by MDI Biological Laboratory for its 2024-2025 Arts Meets Science programme.
Online Resources:
