Metabolism holds potential as both a crucial topic and an analytical tool for our current biopolitical moment, for understanding the agency and significance of material forces as they move into and through bodies. From this vantage point, this article suggests practicing a metabolic gaze by reading together metabolism and contemporary art. It discusses ways of defining metabolism that might be productive in helping to produce tools and touchstones for metabolic readings, before presenting examples of artworks that might be interestingly illuminated by light of this sign.

Bringing together science and literature for purposes of casting these knowledge areas into relief is a well-established analytical practice. Rather less studied is the turn toward material practice as it has unfolded across science studies and the arts. However, this trend has the potential to open up new methods for thinking about science and literature and new forms of public engagement. This paper explores one possibility for combining creative writing in the form of sports cheers. It posits a materialized future scenario designed to encourage the public to consider potential futures and explore their individual ideas about a particular technological development (in this case artificial intelligence) in a fun and imaginative way.

ABSTRACT This article examines the role of aesthetics in scientific argument by analyzing two images. The first, from Ernst Haeckel's Art Forms in Nature (1904), depicts 15 bats evenly spaced on a white field. The second, Charley Harper's Darwin's Finches (1961), shows 13 finches, similarly displayed. Although these two images may at first appear to have little in common, they both present a specific interpretation of Darwin's theories using visual language. This article argues that the act of representation and scientific theory are inextricably intertwined.