The perception of time undergoes a radical shift between the human scale and the nanoscale. In an age of rapidly evolving media and scientific technologies, we need to understand how these impact human perception and visual culture. This essay explores computational molecular simulations through the lenses of temporal media theory and moving image practice. Emerging from a creative fellowship with a physical chemistry research group, I focus on two moving image works that depict crystalline structures. One is a nanoscale computational simulation of soot formation and the other is a durational video artwork showing the dissolution of sugar. Computational molecular simulations are shown to produce a feeling of time by smearing an extremely short duration across a longer perceptible duration. This analysis uncovers how the awareness of media as a construct troubles our chronoception (perception of time), while unexpectedly, the screen becomes complicit in scientists’ expert temporal understanding. The videos present vastly different spatial and temporal scales and have different chronoceptive effects: one gives a sense of being within time, the other across time. Ultimately, computational simulations emerge as isomorphic media that have explicit aesthetic properties that connect us to the implicit, abstract energetics of chemical reactivity.

中文翻译：

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关于感知分子时间：计算化学模拟和移动图像


对时间的感知在人类尺度和纳米尺度之间经历了根本性的转变。在媒体和科学技术快速发展的时代，我们需要了解它们如何影响人类感知和视觉文化。本文通过时间媒体理论和运动图像实践的视角探讨了计算分子模拟。在与物理化学研究小组的创造性合作中，我专注于描绘晶体结构的两幅动态图像作品。一个是烟灰形成的纳米级计算模拟，另一个是显示糖溶解的持续视频艺术作品。计算分子模拟被证明可以通过将极短的持续时间涂抹在较长的可感知持续时间上来产生时间感。这项分析揭示了媒体作为一种结构的意识如何困扰我们的时间感知（时间感知），而出乎意料的是，屏幕成为科学家专家时间理解的同谋。这些视频呈现出截然不同的空间和时间尺度，并具有不同的时间感受效果：一个给人一种身处时间之内的感觉，另一个给人一种跨越时间的感觉。最终，计算模拟作为同构介质出现，具有明确的美学特性，将我们与化学反应的隐含的、抽象的能量学联系起来。