Protein neon art
I don’t know what to think about the neon artwork depicting proteins related to deadly diseases displayed in the windows of the Wellcome Trust’s headquarters on Euston Road in London:
The neon art “is mesmerising passers-by in the centre of London, and acting as a bittersweet reminder of the devastation of serious medical conditions”, says the Wellcome website, and continues:
Proteins play a key part in how our bodies interact with disease. The Structural Genomics Consortium, which the Wellcome Trust part-funds, has had a crucial role in identifying the structure of some important proteins related to human disease, including cancer, HIV, obesity and malaria. Understanding the structures offers potential targets for novel drugs to treat these conditions. London design team Graphic Thought Facility have constructed a colourful and thought-provoking display depicting a number of these proteins in bright neon signs that are attracting the attention of busy onlookers.
Decorative, okey — but “mesmerising” and “thought-provoking”?
18 Jan 2007 Thomas
Fully agree. Can’t see how the neon artwork possibly could evoke disturbing feelings of the diseased body. This is not the way to visualize our invisibles. It’s too slick and safe and just makes you think of Christmas decorations, especially when it’s displayed in this way.
På www.rcsb.org/pdb/home/home.do kan man se rumlige strukturmodeller af forskellige 41136 proteiner inklusiv “proteine of the month”
Yes, I have seen the Protein of the Month on the Protein Data Base and have enjoyed that feature — the thing that is different about the proteins-in-neon is that they are visible from one of the busiest streets in the world, and literally thousands of people an hour will see them and wonder what they are. Some will even look up ‘protein’ with Google and find the database Sven Erik mentions.
It is true also that they are decorative, but a ’spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down’ and it is an introduction to a subject that I have found can become addictive — biomedicine!
And in fact, they are not so bad when you see them close up as I did last Tuesday. They have depth of field and sculptural presence and it is true that people stop to look at them if they are on foot. The textual information is pretty helpful.
However, when I saw the photograph I had hoped that they would be animated neons so that we could see protein folding and other phenomena, but they are not, and so perhaps there is a missed opportunity. I also thought about all the people who work on developing these understandings (essentially the neons are constructed based on chemical diagrams) and visualisations, and whether they would be happy to see this public show of their work, or rather miffed that they do not have as big a credit as the designers!
You’re right — seeing such things i 3D reality might be very different from seeing small reproductions on a website.