Designs Unseen – An Interview with "Micronaut" Martin Oeggerli

Interviews

18. Apr. 2008

By James Posey

Page 1 | Page 2

Very rarely when doing research about a given artist or designer are you going to come across statements along the lines of "E2F3 is the main target gene of the 6p22 amplicon with high specificity for human bladder cancer." But this is in fact indeed part of "micronaut" Martin Oeggerli's world. Splitting his time between his "day job" doing cancer research at the University of Basel's Pathology department and his passion for photographing the "micro-cosmos" around us, Martin is living his dreams.

Using highly sophisticated scanning electron microscopes (SEMs) just as the starting point for his process, he has developed an amazing portfolio of the "seen and unseen" in our world over the past years. For his design work, Martin has received several awards, including – most recently – first place in the 2008 international competition of the prestigious scientific magazine "The EMBO Journal", in the category of Best Scientific Cover. But, as Martin himself confirms, it's not winning awards that keeps him motivated to keep working – often into the wee hours of the night. To meet Martin is to experience firsthand just how passionate he truly is about his work, whether it’s excitedly describing the differences in the quality of hairs of "cute" jumping spiders, or contemplating the small and somewhat mysterious objects hiding between a butterfly's scaly winglets.

Martin Oeggerli Micronaut award winner
The award winning photo © Martin Oeggerli

He explained to XYMARA.com how he got interested in photography and design and about his design process.

For as long as I can remember, I've been interested in beautiful images. When I was younger, I did a lot of drawing, illustrating very detailed and accurate pictures of different things. But my current style of work started in 2004, when my father, who really enjoys photography and is quite good at it, gave me my first camera.

I think I made 20,000 pictures in the first few months alone because I had just such a great time. It’s very good with digital because you have such freedom and you can learn so much by trial-and-error in a short amount of time ... and at lower costs. The camera also had a very good "macro" functionality enabling focussing on all sizes of views. You could also rotate the zoom lens pretty easily and get really, comfortably, close to just about anything. So here the "microcosmos" really began to catch my eye.

I began working with a company here in Switzerland in 2005 that wanted some technical support where both my interest in photography and scientific background were very useful. Starting off, several SEM pictures had to be finished quickly because they had an important project to complete. So it was very much "learning by doing" for me.

Martin Oeggerli Micronaut fly
Fly's eye, close-up © Martin Oeggerli

The "problem" is, of course, that SEM only generates black and white pictures. Any coloration has literally to be made by hand. But we were under such tremendous time pressure that I didn't have the opportunity to learn the coloration methods a typical graphic designer might use. Basically, I just had to jump in and push the project through. However, this did allow me to develop a very unique coloration method.

The coloration can be an incredibly detailed task and it's taken me up to 100 hours to complete such designs. But I try to find time wherever I can to work on my designs a little, even on the tram on the way to work, or the train ride on my way to the SEM lab. I'm really quite a perfectionist, so having patience is a must.

For my design process itself, the coloration is, in my eyes, the real starting point for “designing” the image. If I were to show you the original black and white scan vs. the colored versions of a given photo, it would evoke a very different reaction and have a completely different effect for you. It's a totally different world. For me, the images first come to life with the color. And the color can change the terms of what we see and the emotions we feel so much. The entire impression of the image may change considerably with even subtle color variation; even if the light is "coming" from the left or the right can be very important (I have to "imitate" the effects of lighting as well in my work).

The preparation of my samples is also critical because they represent the basis of every final image. It's very challenging from a technical perspective and certainly of fundamental importance from a scientific point of view. However, art has a lot to do with freedom and my freedom begins once I have managed to produce a technically flawless image from a well preserved – and, hopefully, very interesting – sample.

Of course, you have to pick good "subjects" to work with. At the beginning, I found so many things interesting: from work, as well as things I would find in my own back yard. For me, the effect is like flying through a range of microscopic mountains in a helicopter, or even scuba-diving through mysterious deep-sea valleys teeming with unknown life. There's just so much of this "landscape" that I want to explore.

It is quite an experience seeing something for the first time on a microscopic level. Sometimes, of course, you detect things that were not at all expected – which is such a thrill. This was the case all the time when I started; well, at least it was when everything lined up, namely that I had good samples and the technique worked well. But there were a lot of disappointments too and it was very time-consuming in terms of hours spent working compared to the number of useable pictures I was generating.

Now, in fact, I conduct quite a lot of research on a "subject" before I start the design process. I try to have a plan in mind of what kind of unique aspects I'm looking for that will ultimately create the most beautiful image. Even then, of course, there can still be surprises. Very often, research into a given subject – be it pollen grains, or butterfly wings, or whatever – will not be able to explain some of the things I see and illustrate fully.

Page 1 | Page 2

More Information