Page 14 - Luce 2024

I nterview

Energy producing enzymes in the mitochondria membrane
Biomedical animation represents something we can’t What are the trade-offs when balancing scientific accuracy
directly see or experience but is founded upon 3D data and artistic freedom in your animations? Do the aspects
and measurement from research labs. My animations are as you value in an animation differ in this regard from your
accurate as I can reasonably make them with lots of scientific audience?
detail, while also meaningful and engaging. The audience
is very diverse. I want to show everyone how extraordinary All the science at the microscopic and molecular scale
science can be by showing people how cells divide or how requires visual manipulation to make it watchable and
diseases work. meaningful for an audience. For example, I spend a great deal
of time playing with colour to see how it feels, but largely
My animations bring to life the astonishing scientific make choices based on simple rules that I find work because
discoveries about our living cells, and have proven popular for we are warm-blooded mammals.
classroom education, science programs, museum exhibitions
and public festivals. I have created animations for both If it is alive and healthy, it is pink; if it is dead, it is cold and
science and science-fiction, from the Emmy-winning DNA blue; if it is diseased or sick, it’s yellows and greens. Colour
documentary series to creating the alien DNA of the time- changes how the audience responds to what they are looking
travelling Doctor Who. I have contributed to Hollywood films at and conveys a feeling for the stuff moving around on the
such as The Day the Earth Stood Still, in which Keanu Reeves screen.
plays an alien-human hybrid who wants to destroy our planet.
The alien Reeves is captured by a military lab, which displays Sound design is 51% of what makes my animations come
my animations of his alien-human DNA. alive. It is a subtle but powerful cue to the world you are
looking at and makes the animations far more entertaining and
My animations also exhibit as art in grand establishments such engaging. Almost all my animation soundscapes were created
as the V&A, the Guggenheim Museum, and the Museum of by my long-time friend and collaborator, Franc Tétaz, a
Modern Art (NYC). Grammy-winning Australian sound designer and music
producer.
How are you able to turn complex scientific concepts
into animations that are engaging and informative, and what Franc has long understood my intent, and we are both striving
is the process for an animation of an individual topic at a for productions with reach and impact. His sound design
high level? transforms my animations into a visceral experience, which
makes the audience lean in and engage.
My explanation of how I create biomedical animation is best
expressed in words, visuals and sounds which is why I am What is particularly wonderful about our biology is that
answering this question by referring readers to this ‘Tech Talk’ what science has discovered is always mind-boggling in the
on YouTube: intricate, complicated way it operates. Most audiences enjoy
https://youtu.be/qbyzEiBvbXw?si=P6fA7DX2CkCtFJ-r watching intricate, complicated things in action, particularly
when that’s the stuff of which your flesh is made.

14 LUCE Number 22 2023