Vergrößerung und das mikroskopische Erhabene

Abstract

Focussing on the cinematic technique of magnification, this contribution studies what may be called the aesthetic surplus of scientific cinematography and asks how this surplus affects and informs both scientific research practices and film theory's conceptions of the medium. Based on close readings of texts by Walter Benjamin and Jean Esptein as well as a number of early adopters of cinematography in the field of empirical scientific research, the contribution argues that the combination of the cinematic frame and magnification induces an ineluctable effect of the sublime which impresses itself upon scientists as well as filmmakers and theorists with important consequences.