Parasite

A drop of pond water under a darkfield microscope, teeming with tiny life

Look down the microscope into a single drop of pond water: a tardigrade ambles through on eight stubby clawed legs, slipper-shaped ciliates swim by with their hair rippling, a rotifer spins its twin crowns on a green spiral-chloroplast filament, an amoeba flows, a nematode wriggles past and glassy diatoms glint like jewels among flickering bacteria. Every body glows against the dark with fine coloured fringes as the focus slowly breathes. Move the mouse to shine a sharper spot of light: the bacteria and ciliates swim from it, the tardigrade turns its head to look and the rotifer pulls in its crown. Click to send a gentle current through the drop. With music on, the light swells with the bass and the bacteria sparkle on the beat.

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