Esther Leslie is Professor of Political Aesthetics at Birkbeck at the University of London. Her books include Hollywood Flatlands: Animation, Critical Theory and the Avant Garde (Verso, 2002); Synthetic Worlds: Nature, Art and the Chemical Industry (Reaktion, 2005); Derelicts: Thought Worms from the Wreckage (Unkant, 2014) and Liquid Crystals: The Science and Art of a Fluid Form (Reaktion, 2016). She runs a website with Ben Watson.