Carbon
Next of kin and heir apparent to Silicon
Earlier this month, I was at the National Science Gallery Bengaluru for their maiden in-person exhibition titled ‘Carbon’.
As a chemistry major, carbon has been a constant presence in my life. Over 90% of the equations I dealt with in college ultimately boiled down to some form of carbon. And rightfully so.
Everything from the carbon dioxide we exhale to anti-malarial drugs; from the soil to the air we exhale; the cells of all known life on earth, everything is quite literally made in (or of or by) different forms of carbon. And yet, this is the first time that I had heard of an exhibition that pays homage to this humble atom. I knew I had to visit, and it was totally worth it.
There were 36 exhibits that looked at carbon from diverse perspectives, blurring the lines between science and art, fact and poetry, reality and illusion. Here I list out the ones that made my jaw drop.
Jivanu - the life particle
In 1959, Krishna Bahadur and Ranganayaki, two Indian scientists at the University of Allahabad, ran a few experiments to prove abiogensis - the theory that life could originate from lifeless matter. They showed how different forms of carbon mix and match to create life-like particles, an experimental set up is show below.
Image Description: A recreation of Krishna Bahadur and Ranganayaki’s experimental setup
Although their conclusions from the experiment are still contentious in the academic world, the Thutupalli lab at the National Center for Biological Science is trying to redo these experiments using a bunch of modern equipment.Carbon Black
The French artist Anais Tondeur walks around cities with an N-95 mask that can capture suspended carbon particles, then extracts those from the mask, creates ink out of these particles and made some paintings from that ink. The darker the ink, the greater the carbon content in the atmosphere. The paintings are a sombre reminder of how beauty can sometimes be malicious, and more importantly how you can find beauty in the saddest spaces.
Image Description: Paintings by Anais
Allotropy of Mine
“For you are from dust, and to dust you will return.”
- Genesis 3:19, The BibleA human body is 18% carbon. The scientist-artist Daniela Estrada who weighs 60 kg calculated that for her body to be alive there needs to be 10.8 kg of carbon atoms building her cells, tissues, DNA, glucose, and more.
The exhibit is an installation of 10.8kg of carbon in the form of coal inside different glass bottles. Each bottle represents in a poetic and imaginary way the weight of carbon in the different tissues, organs, and molecules. It also makes us wonder how different the carbon in coal is from the carbon that makes up each of these bits of our body.
Image Description: Each glass bottle represents a part of the human body
The Mineworkers’ Song
A third of all the exhibits at the event was related to energy derived from carbon, in some form or the other.
But this one stood out to me because it highlighted the folks who are the heart of the carbon industry - the miners, and how their carbon derived lives are spent in the service of carbon extraction, often at the wrong end of the exploitation spectrum their bodies and minds crushed by the back-breaking labour. And yet when we speak of phasing out coal mines and moving towards renewables the miners continue to be those worst-affected.
This song is an ode to their resilience, the spirit that keeps the mining communities going in spite of the system being stacked against them.
Image Description: The part of the exhibition where the mineworkers’ song was displayed
Clouds Above, Clouds Below
Clouds are probably one of the least understood climate phenomenon, we need more data on clouds to make better predictions about the future of the planet. And yet more data about clouds being stored ‘in the cloud’ directly contributes to negative environmental consequences.
I was blown away by the effort that has gone into the collection, analysis and more importantly visualization of all of this data. Annelie Berner and her team have also compiled their findings into a book. This was the exhibit that came closest to the problem we are tackling at BioCompute.
Image Description: A carbon mediator describing an exhibit to the visitors (which includes me), courtesy of the National Science Gallery Linkedin page
The Missing Link
”Carbon is an archive of buried sunshine, carrying the memories of life on earth. It jumbles the divide between substance and phenomenon, caught between finitude of nature’s resources and the near infinite wonderous potential it holds”
- Carbon (The Exhibition), 2024The only piece of the puzzle that I found missing at ‘Carbon’ was an exhibit that dived into carbon-powered storage and computing, and imagining what it might look like. As an element in the same group of the periodic table as silicon, having a lot of similar chemical properties as the former, but being more ubiquitous, and in its organic form more sustainable.
While carbon largely reigns supreme in so many walks of life, it plays second fiddle to silicon when it comes to data storage and computation. The next paradigm in computing is more likely than not to be driven by carbon. I am excited to see how scientist-artists at the National Science Gallery envision that future. Maybe that’s a potential cool theme for their next exhibition.
P.S. If you are interested in the exhibition, a virtual tour is available on the National Science Gallery website until 31 July, 2024
