Have you ever imagined what life is like for a mouse, or a bug, or a bird? What we know about the world is deeply related to our sense of physical presence, and to the sense organs of our bodies that take in information and help create understandings. At the edges of our perceptual capacities lie mysteries enshrouded from our senses.  The infinitely small (the microscopic) and the infinitely huge (the universe) are realms easier navigated by our imaginations than our bodies.  The microscopic world, invisible to our naked eye yet existing everywhere, represents that which lies beyond our conscious awareness:  our dreams, collective memory, and sources of emotions. 

Human life exists at a finite time and space within the infinity of miniscule and humongous, past and future. A scanning electron microscope (sem) enables us to travel the landscape of the tiniest surfaces, and to discover the breadth and depth of each point in space.  Just as astronomers use telescopes to probe the horizon of the universe beyond earth, so microscopists pass through the horizon of the miniscule into the universe within our perceived world.  There exists an inexplicable pattern and order that inspire a questioning of the relationship between the micron and the light year.

Click here to see photographs I have taken using the scanning electron microscope.