bioephemera is art + biology - everything from representations of science in art and literature to the neuroscience of aesthetics. 
Magnetic Movie from Semiconductor on Vimeo.
Last week, at the imagine science film festival in New York, Magnetic Movie won the Nature Scientific Merit Award:
In 2009, the Nature Scientific Merit Award went to the film judged to be not only the most deserving but also the most scientifically accurate, Ruth Jarman and Joe Gerhard's Magnetic Movie.
I love Magnetic Movie, too - but what think you about the scientific accuracy angle? See what I had to say about it in my Art vs. Science series, earlier this year:
Art vs. Science, Part One: Semiconductor
Art vs. Science, Part Two: You want raw data? You can't handle raw data!
Physical Science
Comments
I'm appalled that it won an award for accuracy.
I wrote this about it in June of 2008:
Hopefully, you realize that the depictions of magnetic fields in those laboratories are artistic illustrations only, right?
Or, to put it another way, the sounds you hear are VLF radio waves. The animations you see are keyed to the sounds that you hear, but in no way depict the actual magnetic field, or the actual location of the magnetic field.
The fields that are causing the sounds that you hear are not in those laboratories.
Posted by: Dan L | November 6, 2009 4:06 AM
What's worse is that even in the few cases where actual magnetic lines might exist to be visualized, such as around the wires, they're drawn all wrong. They'd be around the wires, not streaking out from them like hair.
The graphics would have been just as interesting against actual representations of the sun and earth, and no matter how much artistic license they took with those representations would have been far more accurate than having them come out of walls and tables and random containers in a lab.
Posted by: idlemind | November 6, 2009 12:44 PM
As an artist with an interest in science I found it fascinating to watch. I normally wouldn't find such a topic interesting, but this film made it so. It's more about engaging the viewer who is possibly a layperson like myself, and making them take an interest in the subject, perhaps encouraging a desire to know more, rather than an A to Z on magnetic fields. A bit like a commercial! In this sense I would regard it as successful.
Posted by: Patricia | November 8, 2009 11:52 PM
I like the idea that it is in a lab - using CG to make the invisible visible is great. I wish that the field lines around the wires had been accurate though - it's obvious right away even to a layperson such as myself.
I have to say that using a different source for the sound effects seems like perfectly reasonable artistic license. The use of one thing to represent another is what art is all about - nobody criticizes the Sistine Chapel by saying that god isn't really made of plaster and colorful ground minerals.
Posted by: eff | November 9, 2009 4:04 AM