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

When artists and scientists collaborate, we get captivating and sensitive videos, an invitation to dream and marvel over a new world, full of personal abstraction.

“Microfluidic”, such a strange word, with peculiar and mysterious echoes. What is this tool, used by some scientists on a daily basis, in a lab, to advance the state of knowledge, develop new drugs and make tomorrow’s world a healthier place? 

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. 

It’s all there. Ample strides of liquids, touching ; spherical and rounded shapes, sharp and tangy fusions… That is the essence of microfluidics: liquids, gases, drops(…) interacting inside channels as small as a mosquito’s nose…

The Microfluidic Poetry project was initiated in 2018 by Elveflow. 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? 

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. 

A series of immersive videos were captured during the research process. They will be presented gradually. To discover each facet of the project, do not hesitate to follow Elveflow accounts on social networks and continue this discovery of the world of microfluidics with poetry (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube). 

Each video will be dedicated to inviting the public who so wishes to further their knowledge of microfluidics. Much of the content is already available for free, in the form of application notes, introductions or tutorials:

Microfluidics and microfluidic devices: a review

History of Microfluidics

Microfluidics: A general overview of microfluidics