From Nanobots to Space Probes: Media and Scale

Bridging science studies and media studies, this course asks how media represent and make accessible scales of time and space that are otherwise outside the scope of human perception. We will cover how media translate nano, micro, somato, local/global, cosmic scales of space, addressing scientific visualizations and questions of representation and exhibition across media forms (including cinema, electron microscopes, radio telescopes, video games, IMAX, Planetariums, space probes, and more). We will also discuss media representations of diverse scales of time. This will involve the exploration of speculations, simulations, and questions of visualizing and narrating “deep time,” both past and future.