Bioluminescence is a curious phenomenon: it is the[...]

Siegfried Zielinski

01/01/2006

Eng

Bioluminescence is a curious phenomenon: it is the ability of certain plants and animals, independent of all sources of artificial and natural light in their vicinity, to emit short flashes of light or to glow over a longer period of time without any increase in the organism’s temperature. For this reason, it is also known as cold luminescence [...] It has been established that biochemical reactions are involved, oxidation processes. In order for organisms to bioluminesce, oxygen has to react with at least two groups of molecules, one of which are luciferins. These light-producing organic substances react very fast with oxygen and release energy in the form of photons. However, this process would be destructive for the luciferins—the molecules would immediately disappear after contact with oxygen and their power to emit light would be too weak to be visible—were it not for the presence of their catalyzing partner, luciferase.

Siegfried Zielinski, Deep Time of the Media , Massachusetts Institute of Technology , 01/01/2006, Cambridge
tipologia Studio storico-critico
ambito Media Art

p. 13

Bioluminescence (Eng)

luciferin, flash