How important is the use of synchrotron light in artistic research?
Synchrotron radiation is very useful for certain experiments, but you should only use it when it is necessary. There are two different paths of analytical possibilities at the ESRF that can be of interest for art researchers: the analysis of microsamples, and the nondestructive analysis of entire objects, such as bones and paintings. At the moment my team has a research project for visualization studies on ID17. In general there’s a lot of research on art going on at the ESRF and there is even a review committee focused only on proposals for experiments about art. However, there are still things to be done. How could research into art develop at the ESRF? Personally, I would be in favour of further measures to help with the transportation of objects for nondestructive analysis. Obviously the safe acclimatization of objects is important, but perhaps the community could also think about setting up a sort of travel and insurance fund, because these are costs that usually cannot be paid fo
