Movement beyond data. Epistemic and pictorial challenges of understanding moving life

Janina Wellmann^1,2*

• ¹Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin, Germany
• ²Technische Universitat Berlin, Berlin, Germany

Nothing inside organisms is at rest but everything moves. Cells are transported through the vascular system, proteins move cargo away or towards the cell nucleus, enzymes repair DNA which is constantly modified by metabolic cell processes or external influences affecting the organism. Various processes happen simultaneously in the crowded spaces of cells and across tissues, carefully coordinated and orchestrated. In contemporary science, movement is at the root of studying cellular and molecular processes, in short, of all the things that happen and get done inside the organism. This article provides historical perspective and methodological reflection to the study of cellular and subcellular motion in current biotechnology. It shows that, far from being evident, movement is not observed but made. I argue, firstly, that current biotechnology's conceptualization of motion happens in and via image-making and is thus shaped by a long pictorial history and struggle to make images move. Secondly, to make the invisible move under the conditions of visibility, metaphors and imaginaries of our every-day experience of animal motion are transposed into the nanoscopic sphere thereby setting the framework and limits of understanding motion on the molecular level.