Agonism / Antagonism is a new exhibition resulting from artist Neus Torres Tamarit’s residency in the laboratory of Dr Max Reuter, Reader in evolutionary genetics at UCL, and part of a long-term collaboration with computer scientist Ben Murray.
James Sprittles is an Associate Professor in the Mathematics Institute at the University of Warwick, who studies the mathematical modelling and computational simulation of technologically-relevant interfacial flows, which are particularly relevant in the emerging fields of nano- and microfluidics.
“In the past we tended to imagine that water was a scarce and precious resource. But as we learn more about our place in the Universe, we are becoming ever more aware that water is everywhere.”
Professor Jonti Horner, an astronomer and astrobiologist who currently works in the Computational Engineering and Science Research Centre at the University of Southern Queensland, in Toowoomba, Australia.
“We are all bodies of water! What we do to water, we do to every body, including ourselves.”
Astrida Neimanis writes mostly about bodies, water and weather, in an intersectional feminist mode. Her most recent monograph is Bodies of Water: Posthuman Feminist Phenomenology. She is currently Senior Lecturer in the Department of Gender and Cultural Studies and Key Researcher at the Sydney Environment Institute at the University of Sydney, on Gadigal land, in Australia.
“The challenges we face with water are largely a consequence of how we perceive it in postmodern industrialized societies. Despite the myriad ways that water connects us to the world, our management and engineering of it seldom reflects that realization. Whereas expanding our perceptions of water may appear to be a relatively simple task, there are biological and behavioral factors that complicate our capacity and inclination to do so. Given the complex processes and systems that govern water in nature, our mimicking its patterns could supplement our comprehending or predicting them. ”
D.L. Marrin (nickname West) is an applied scientist specializing in biogeochemistry, water resources and aquatic ecology.
“The idea of interconnectedness has been one of the central themes of my water work for over forty years. Water issues are vast and present intricately complex problems. I think that the solutions and suggestions for actions lie in a diversity of approaches. It will take all of us working together cooperatively to come to the assistance of bodies of water around the globe. In this radically interconnected world it behooves each of us to compassionately take care of each other and our environment, because we are one and the same.”
In her pioneering inter-disciplinary practice, Basia Irland focusses on rivers and watersheds, water scarcity, climate change, ecological restoration and waterborne diseases. Her poetic, socially-engaged work endeavours to reconnect people with their local waterways in order to foster care, appreciation and responsibility.
John Finney is Emeritus Professor of Physics at University College, London. He is the author of ‘Water: A Very Short Introduction’, published by Oxford University Press. The book provides an introduction to the science of water, ice, snow, and steam, and how the structure of water molecules gives rise to its physical and chemical properties.
Margaret Inga Urías is a multidisciplinary artist primarily using the medium of drawing to create engraved sculptures, site-specific installations, large-scale murals, constructed photographs and works on paper. Drawn to lost histories, concealed origins and imperceptible, forgotten connections, she is interested in conditions that entangle the past, the present, and the future–re-examining how we orient ourselves, not only in the immediacy of places around us, but also in the universe that maintains us. With a specific interest in the physical laws and circumstances that brought space, time, matter and beings into existence, she creates works that often function as trace narratives– following the story of the small, the coincidental, and the invisible, over vast stretches of time.
Artist and writer, Richard Bright, has addressed the relationship between art, science and consciousness for over 30 years. In his recent series of drawings he explores the impermanent and shifting process of time.
“Einstein’s special theory of relativity, shows that time is … relative: the faster you move relative to me, the slower time will pass for you relative to my perception of time. So in our universe of expanding galaxies, spinning stars and swirling planets, experiences of time vary: everything’s past, present and future is relative.
So is there a universal time that we could all agree on?”
Thomas Kitching is a cosmologist, Reader in astrophysics, and Royal Society University Research Fellow working at the Mullard Space Science Laboratory at UCL. His interests are in dark energy, dark matter, statistics, and computer science. He is a manager in one of the worlds largest cosmology experiments, a European Space Agency mission called Euclid.