Flip open any neuroscience textbook and the depiction of a neuron will be roughly the same: a blobby, amoebalike cell body shooting out a long, thick strand.

She was struck by her observation that macrophages, amoebalike cells in the immune system, had the most vaults of any human cells.

She also helps to create one of the work’s most striking images, pouring water onto a reflective surface to cast amoebalike forms behind her — while she sinks into the ground.

Only about a fifth of the 20 million people in greater Los Angeles actually live in the amoebalike city limits.

As drive-in audiences dwindled — lost to brick-and-mortar theaters that multiplied, amoebalike, into triplexes and quadruplexes and later into multiplexes and megaplexes — rising land prices and property taxes drove many drive-in owners to cash out, making way for subdivisions, office parks or shopping centers.