While Steinman‘s concern is not the fate of the object (or the organ, here represented in a simplified matter, because a complete—if ever exists–rendition would not help diagnose a stroke or a blood clot), or whether the object is represented realistically or just schematically . her concern is more related to the conventions and the diverse levels of understanding that prevent individuals from collecting the same information.
If aesthetic conventions and assumptions contribute to the shaping of the object, then also the technologies that allow us to “see” or “visualize” the object contribute to it. In my presentation on visualization of viruses, which in a timely manner followed Steinman‘s, I observed how when it is visualized, a microscopic object like the virus becomes a multilayered entity and a complex hybrid. in fact, being substantially invisible, the virus can be only seen through layering and transforming tools such as electron microscope, data software and 3D software. Thus, the virus effectively manifests as an “implosion of informatics and biologics,” one that is “not born, but it is made,” as Haraway so elegantly put it. once again, the resulting “object” is a texture of diverse forms and processes: it doesn’t exist as a single well-constrained entity, but as a dynamic texture.
