“The Swarming of Life”: Moving Images, Education, and Views through the Microscope

Abstract

ArgumentDiscussions of the scientific uses of moving-image technologies have emphasized applications that culminated in static images, such as the chronophotographic decomposition of movement into discrete and measurable instants. The projection of movement, however, was also an important capability of moving-image technologies that scientists employed in a variety of ways. Views through the microscope provide a particularly sustained and prominent instance of the scientific uses of the moving image. The category of “education” subsumes theses various scientific uses, providing a means by which to bridge the cultures of scientific and popular scientific moving images.