Category: Practice

polarized microscopy

  1. Set Up the Microscope: Ensure that the polarizers, analyzer, and retardation plates are properly installed in the microscope. Adjust the alignment of the polarizers to achieve crossed polarization.
  2. Choose a Polarized Light Source: Select an appropriate polarized light source, such as a polarized filter or a specialized lamp. This will provide the necessary polarized light for sample illumination.
  3. Prepare the Sample: Prepare your sample by mounting it on a glass slide or other suitable substrate. Thin sections or transparent samples are ideal for polarized light microscopy.
  4. Adjust the Analyzer: Adjust the analyzer to control the intensity of the polarized light passing through the sample. By rotating the analyzer, you can enhance or diminish the contrast in the observed image.
  5. Analyze the Sample: Observe the sample under the polarized light microscope and analyze its optical properties. Look for birefringence, which manifests as color variations or patterns, indicating differences in refractive indices within the sample.
  6. Quantify the Retardation: If necessary, measure the retardation of the sample using specialized techniques such as conoscopic interference or compensators. This can provide quantitative information about the sample’s optical properties.

Polarized light microscopy offers a versatile and non-destructive method for studying a wide range of samples. Whether you are examining geological specimens, analyzing biological structures, or investigating the optical properties of materials, this technique provides valuable insights into the behavior of polarized light and its interaction with various substances.

Polarized light microscopy is a powerful technique used in various fields such as mineralogy, materials science, and biological sample analysis. It involves the use of polarized light to study the optical properties of samples, particularly their birefringence and anisotropy. Training and education in polarized light microscopy are essential for researchers and professionals who work with these techniques.

great description of positionally

https://syntropicmaterials.eumo.it – SYNTROPIC MATERIALS

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

I am an Italian designer, educated in hegemonic European schools of Art and Design. That being said, I am sensitive to the responsibilities and forms of power tied to my positionality as a White European designer with significant institutional support. The ideas herein are polyphonic, reflecting the sustained reading and conversations I have had with post-colonial and indigenous scholars, activists, thinkers and writers. They are not the exclusive preserve of my own authoritative voice but the outcome of heterogeneous influences.

In privileging indigenous knowledge, I situate indigeneity not as radical alterity but as a form of world building at odds with our contemporary extractivist moment, in which ecological crisis can only be confronted through pluralistic, open and dynamic traditions.

This openness and the presumed parity between different ontological and epistemological systems is what allows me to experiment with the promises (and failures) of Western science and indigenous relationships to land and environment. This is part of an effort to think ourselves out of the quagmire that environmental crisis portends.

Real-time feedback thoughts

I really like the examples of physical computing art works that react to real time data of a sensor somewhere else.

it has an effective simplicity to it. You instantly relate to a crafted idea of an other. an-other.

(side note: ‘an other’ and ‘another’ feel as though there is room for a pithy name for something… if there were lots of something, or it keeps happening? like another and another. It could be references something negative that just continues to happen… but the ‘an’ ‘other’ part refers to otherness yet boing a thing, something else, like you but out there… (maybe… still need to think about this))

In the physical computing lecture they show an example of an art work of group of tall grasses that are moving in a way that mimics in real-time the movement of a grass on a beach somewhere.

My head went to the idea of some sort of environmental data being displayed in the studio in real time… What data could i be sensing?:

  • temperature
  • ph
  • sound?
  • chemical levels of nitrogen doesn’t sound very interesting…

With this medium I think what ever is going to sensed needs to be interesting… an unusual thing to get insight into….

this could be underwater? water is extra fascinating because it’s a type of hearing we can’t really / readily experience. The Thames would be an interesting test site – it’s local and I have access to it! I wonder what the Thames sounds like? Are there even healthy ecosystems in there? If there isn’t and it doesn’t sounds like much, how does that compare to other bodies of water/aquatic ecosystems?? How would the water qualities, ie velocity or width or depth vegetation effect this?

This is maybe a bit ambitions for the timeframe and/or my skill set… (also would need to think more about how it’s responding to brief)