Microfluidic poetry: A unique, imaginative and sensitive vision of the microfluidics field

Can we feel a scientific practice, through emotion, through the realm of the sensitive? Can we get a peek of microfluidics without talking about science, without showing the instruments?

Gold droplets made with a microfluidic device in the laboratory. Photography, Microfluidic Poetry | Julien Ridouard in collaboration with Elveflow

The Microfluidic Poetry project was initiated in 2018 by Elveflow and the artist Julien Ridouard. Artists and scientists worked together to develop a new world, an abstract universe symbolizing what this scientific world can be. They combined their base materials: pigments, paint, and the most accurate pressure controllers in the world. An extraordinary research process then began, starting from a question:

Can we feel a scientific practice, through emotion, through the realm of the sensitive? Can we get a peek of microfluidics without talking about science, without showing the instruments?

Instruments, tools, technical terms are removed to give way to emotion, poetry and imagination. Microfluidic poetry is a conceptual and sensitive vision of the microfluidic field, on the blurring border between arts and science. An invitation to dream and marvel over a new world, full of personal abstraction.

The project was inspired by various artistic and scientific works, sometimes revised, revisited, rethought. A mix of different disciplines to open the boundaries of the arts, sciences and technologies.

Acknowledgements:
Jérôme Iglesias, Tewfik Zementzali, Julie Cavallasca, Guilhem Velve Casquillas, Jeremy Cramer and all the teams at Elveflow.