Belladonna & eye

Wietske
Thu, 18 Sep 2014 16:09:48 +0000
Berlin, Umwelten, Atropa belladonna, Atropine, Caffeine, Cat, Chromatography, Metabolism, Nightshade, Plant vision, Pupil, Solanaceae, Sun, Vision

Using the artists’ own eye as departure point, the diptych Belladonna and eye is part of a larger work which explores the relation between the metabolism of the vegetal kingdom and human vision. It shows how the sense of sight, like all senses, is embodied in the materiality of digestion: how sight is made and affected by the same molecules of plants.

On the right is a blown-up print of the artist’s eye with pupil dilated under the effect of atropine. Atropine is a substance from the deadly nightshade plant (Atropa belladonna), which was first discovered by the chemist Friedlieb Runge in Berlin in the 19th century*. Here the camera’s aperture captures the anatomical aperture of the pupil, revealing only its own opaque blackness through which the eye absorbs and perceives light.

The image on the left discloses an aperture of a different kind. It is a chromatograph made using the black pupil-like berries of Atropa belladonna.

Using the artist’s own eye as departure point, the diptych Belladonna and eye is part of a larger work which explores the relation between the metabolism of the vegetal kingdom and human vision. It shows how the sense of sight, like all senses, is embodied in the materiality of digestion: how sight is made and affected by the same molecules of plants.

On the right is a blown-up print of the artist’s eye with pupil dilated under the effect of atropine. Atropine is a substance from the deadly nightshade plant (Atropa belladonna), which was first discovered by the chemist Friedlieb Ferdinand Runge in Berlin in the 19th century. Here the camera’s aperture captures the anatomical aperture of the pupil, revealing only its own opaque blackness through which the eye absorbs and perceives light.

The image on the left discloses an aperture of a different kind. It is a chromatograph made using the black pupil-like berries of Atropa belladonna.

Runge, who happened to be the first to isolate and identify the active substance of atropine, also developed the technique of chromatography. His ’self-grown’ chemical images attempted to record the physicochemical force of living matter. Chromatography visualizes the chemical composition and vitality of biological substances using the same substrate of early photography: silver nitrate. This chromatograph has been made by preparing filter paper with the same emulsion. A caustic soda solution of the Atropa belladonna berry is then absorbed through a wick allowing the fluid to travel through the paper capillaries. The chromatograph begins to appear, however, only after the paper is exposed to indirect sunlight. It is therefore the sunlight which ‘draws’ the image.

The Atropa belladonna belongs to the nightshade species, yet this common name sits at odds with its Latin genus — Solanaceae, the exact etymology of which is unclear, purportedly stemming from either the perceived resemblance of certain solanaceous flowers to the sun and its rays, or from “Solari” meaning to “soothe” referring perhaps to the pharmacological properties of many of the nightshades. This ambivalence, however, reveals an intriguing connection between the nightshade and seeing what can not be seen otherwise.

Together the two images of dilated pupil and chromatograph are at once apertures and ‘photographs’ of a different kind: yet both are developed by a collusive interaction of atropine and light.

This diptych is exhibited as part of The Ultimate Capital Is The Sun exhibition, NGBK, Berlin 20 September – 16 November 2014.

With special thanks to: UMC (Universitair Medisch Centrum, Oogheelkunde kliniek) Utrecht and De Hortus Amsterdam. Photo: Dorothee Albrecht.

*Incidentally, Runge’s isolation of atropine caught the attention of Goethe who invited him to show his discovery. Runge turned up at Goethe’s house using his own cat as experimental subject. Goethe was very impressed by the cat’s pupil dilation and out of true excitement he gave Runge a bag of coffee as a gift, from which Runge discovered and isolated another important alkaloid for modern times: caffeine.