ASCUS BUILDS A CUSTOM MICROSCOPE FOR EXHIBTION
The amazing artist Rae-Yen Song approached us with an unusual request: they wanted their family pond to play a central, live role in their solo exhibition at Tramway, Glasgow. The vision was to stream microscopic footage directly from the pond into the gallery, projecting it onto the walls and using the movement of tiny pond critters across the microscope’s field of view to drive the exhibition’s sound and lighting.
To achieve this, we needed to design a custom microscope capable of producing a clear, well-lit image with a sufficiently large field of view, while imaging through approximately 40 cm of pond water. This introduced a number of optical and mechanical constraints that informed the design from the outset.
Microscopic footage from Rae-Yen’s pond used to identify microorganisms to create sculptures and animations in the exhibition.
As with any microscopy project, the first trade-off was magnification versus field of view. Lower magnification gives you a wider field of view (more chance of spotting critters), but everything appears smaller. Higher magnification shows more detail, but over a much smaller area. Thus, first step was finding a magnification/field-of-view sweet spot that Rae-Yen was happy with.
Another key constraint was working distance. This is the space between the microscope lens and the sample. In most microscopes this distance is tiny, typically between 0.1 and 16 mm depending on the lens. In our case, the “sample” was on the other side of a tank full of water. The pressure exerted by that volume of water meant the tank walls had to be at least 10 mm thick, which immediately ruled out a large number of standard microscope configurations.
To work around this, we took inspiration from inverted microscopes, which are designed to image samples from below rather than above. This approach allowed us to keep all of the optics and electronics safely underneath the tank, while still observing life moving naturally through the water above, with the focal point fixed on the bottom of the tank. Using an inverted microscope as our conceptual model, we began adapting and simplifying the design to suit the exhibition environment.
What followed was a cycle of back-and-forth: confirming dimensions, testing optics, tweaking illumination, adjusting camera placement, and building prototypes to see what worked in practice. Each iteration nudged us closer to a setup that balanced image quality, robustness, and practicality for a public gallery space.
Lab based prototype
The final result was a custom microscope system mounted beneath the pond tank, with a camera capturing live microscopic footage from below. The live video feed was then routed directly into the exhibition’s audio visual system, where the movements of pond life became an active participant in shaping the gallery environment.
Tank at install in Tramway, Glasgow
The exhibition, •~TUA~• 大眼 •~MAK~• is on at Tramway, Glasgow weaves history, memory and imagination, immersing visitors in a phantasmagoric watery abyss populated by ancestral characters. It is absolutely worth a visit.
The exhibition is free and on until 16 Aug 2026.
Open Wednesdays to Fridays 12pm to 5pm
Saturdays 12pm to 6pm
Sundays 12pm to 5pm
•~TUA~• 大眼 •~MAK~• Images: Louise Mackenzie