Liquid Solidity

Stills from the video Liquid Solidity, created for the exhibition “Polymorphic Imprint,” organized by Ursula Berlot at the UGM Gallery, Maribor (Slovenia).
http://www.ugm.si/razstave/ursula-berlot-polimorfni-odtis-2524/

“The exhibition Polymorphic Imprint brings together works created on the basis of microscopic images of nanostructures and transformations of substances, prompted by invisible fields of physical forces (electromagnetism, crystallization). The object of the exhibition was to create various simulations of nature, addressing optical, unconscious and polymorphous aspects of the real, by revealing its own technological construction.”

Despite their apparent complexity, the structure of most viruses is formed of the simple repetition of only a few proteins, sometimes also lipids. These proteins assemble into structures with a geometric symmetry, forming shapes such as icosahedrons (platonic solids formed of 20 triangular faces).

Using Cinema 4D, I created 3d models of two small RNA viruses from crystallographic data structures from the Protein Data Bank:  4RHV – rhinovirus that causes the common cold, and 1FPV, a picorna virus. Various deformations were applied to the individual capsid proteins, creating abstract shifting forms and different orientations of the individual elements, which multiplied by the icosahedral symmetry within the program, as if seeking the most stable orientation.