INDIVISIBLE: Imagination Dialogue
Live and in person at New Media Gallery
Monday August 8, 2022
3:30-3:50pm - Welcomes & Introductions
4-5pm - Imagination Dialogue
5-6pm - Gallery tour of Indivisible
Human Biography produces video content for the most powerful brands, organizations, and humans on the planet. They will produce a moderated dialogue between accomplished researchers in physics and new media recorded for a live audience.
Inspired by the Indivisible exhibition at New Media Gallery, which brings together Arts at CERN residents and others working in the scientific realm, the discussion will ponder 'the unseen processes constantly at work in the world around us' and reveal further intersections of art and science introduced at the exhibition.
IN DIALOGUE WITH
Sharad Khare
Moderator
Co-founder of Human Biography, Sharad uses his background in journalism to bring out the best conversations between individuals and the people they impact. He has documented personalities like His Holiness The Dalai Lama, Meryl Streep, Helen Mirren, Susan Sarandon, Chip Wilson, Jack & Suzy Welch, and many more. Sharad has spoken and conducted interviews at the United Nations on a number of occasions, and has been invited to create original content for many prominent families and organizations globally.
Dr. Monika Stachura
Research Scientist, TRIUMF
Dr. Monika Stachura is a research scientist in the Life Sciences Division at TRIUMF, Canada’s particle accelerator centre. She holds two MSc degrees (in Physics and in Biophysics) and a PhD degree in Bioinorganic Chemistry and in Biophysics. In 2013 she was awarded the competitive postdoctoral research fellowship at CERN. Dr. Stachura joined TRIUMF in 2015 as a postdoctoral fellow at the Centre for Molecular and Materials Science (CMMS) and was appointed to a research (faculty) position in 2016. Her interest lies in applying nuclear physics tools in studies of essential metal ions to understand their role in health and disease. She is the pioneer for beta-radiation detected nuclear magnetic resonance applications into biology and medicine. Alongside her research, Dr. Stachura acts as a faculty liaison for graduate students and postdoctoral fellows at TRIUMF. She also has served as a founding member of TRIUMF’s Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Committee since 2017.
Dr. Laura Marks
New Media Scholar, Simon Fraser University
Laura is an award-winning academic, philosopher and scholar of new media and film. She works on media art and philosophy with an intercultural focus, and on small-footprint media, programming experimental media for venues around the world. She has an MA and PhD in Visual and Cultural Studies from University of Rochester and a BA Honours in History and Sociology/Anthropology. She is the Grant Strate University Professor at Simon Fraser University (SFU). Previously, the Dana Wosk University Professor of Art and Cultural Studies at SFU, Visiting Professor, Department of Visual and
Environmental Studies at Harvard University.
IN PARTNERSHIP WITH
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INDIVISIBLE
About the Exhibition
The full complexity of the universe is invisible to human perception, filled with undetectable matter that follows astonishing rules and patterns. Questioning... searching for invisible or hidden dimensions has long been the pursuit and occupation of cultures, the sciences and the humanities. In this exhibition five artists engage with science + technology to reveal a series of spellbinding, invisible landscapes.
Ancient cosmology was rooted in the meticulous and often poetic observation and interpretation of natural patterns and phenomena. Hundreds of thousands of years in the making, the most sensitive, sophisticated, and flexible instrument of observation may still be us; our frail bodies and creative minds. Evolving science and technologies allow us to extend our crude biologies; creating prosthetics and strategies that help us see beyond human perception...into the dark reaches of space, through time and into the heart of matter. To this end we have developed x-rays and radio waves, devised ways to capture invisible cosmic particles and proposed theories of dark energy and dark matter.
Through extraordinary work in the scientific realm, these award-winning artists capture and reveal the indivisible nature of our invisible and visible world. Four captivating landscapes recall the potential of creative minds to imagine new ways of seeing.
Yunchul Kim
Argos, 2018
Argos is a glittering cosmic ray detector. Commissioned as part of a CERN residency. Through flashing lights, the work visualizes the moments when invisible muon particles collide with the Geiger Muller tubes which are sensing and detecting a rain of ionizing radiation. Muons are cosmic particles similar to electrons but with 200 times the mass. They are created when cosmic rays slam into atoms in the earth’s atmosphere. Travelling at close to the speed of light, Muons shower the earth from all angles. Of all the particles that exist around us, muons are the only ones from space that make it to earth. When the invisible muon particles collide with the two Argosian heads we become aware of this tempestuous landscape, invisible to our eyes.
Semiconductor (UK)
Through the AEgIS , 2017
Through the AEgIS is a space-
time-lapse animation created from micro-photographs, as well as a giclée print. Captured by the Aegis experiment at CERN (Antimatter Experiment, Gravity, Interferometry, Spectroscopy) the animation allows us to visualize a landscape of pions, protons and nuclear fragments flying out from annihilation sites. These tiny particles ionize a photographic plate which, when developed, reveal their turbulent trajectories over time. Using a special microscope with a super-shallow depth of field, this plate is ‘mined’ in two-micron steps, creating images which reveal the trajectories. The delicate lines and brilliant ‘explosions’ show us something extraordinary ; violent collisions between matter and antimatter; a landscape too small for the human eye to see. A sublime, transcendental landscape at the micro-level.
Ralf Baecker (Germany)
Mirage, 2014
Mirage is a complex projection apparatus that uses principles from optics and artificial neural network research. The work generates a synthetic landscape based on how incoming data is
perceived through a ‘fluxgate magnetometer’. This piece of kit registers the magnetic field of the earth, which is dependent on the earth geodynamo and its interactions with the activity of the sun, and then feeds this information into an unsupervised learning algorithm for analysis. The algorithm, inspired by the principle of a Helmholz Machine, “dreams” variations of the previously analyzed signals. These variations are translated into a two dimensional matrix that physically
transform a thin mirror sheet through the actions of 48 muscle wire actors. The surface of the
mirror sheet shifts from analog to systems state. A thin laser line is directed onto the mirror
surface at an acute angle to generate a beguiling, protean dreamscape. The work visualizes
invisible fields and our connections with a distant solar body.
Richard Vijgen (Netherlands)
Hertzian Landscapes, 2019
Hertzian Landscapes is a live visualization of the radio spectrum. Unlike visible light, waves in the radio spectrum cannot be perceived by us directly yet this space is teeming with human activity. Hertzian Landscapes employs a digital receiver to scan large swaths of radio spectrum in
near real-time and visualizes thousands of signals into a panoramic electromagnetic landscape. Users can pick up and adjust specific frequencies by positioning themselves in front of the panorama as if controlling a radio tuner with their body. This gives a sense of walking through an invisible spectrum. From radio broadcasts to weather satellites; from medical implants to aeronautical navigation, the radio spectrum is divided into hundreds of designated slices each tied to a specific application. Based on a localized frequency database that describes these slices, signals are annotated to provide information about their theoretical type and application. The work visualizes a landscape that can be modelled visually and sonically, from gentle rain to agitated volley.
Exhibition photos by Rachel Topham Photography
