Light is fundamental. Its properties have been explored and used by both art and science (for example, Einstein’s ‘thought experiment’, James Turrell’s artworks, ‘Big Bang’ theory, laser technology, altering perception and changing brain behaviour).
What is YOUR VISION for the future exploration and use of light?
The Soyuz capsule roared into the pre-dawn darkness just after 3 a.m. Monday (2100 GMT Sunday) from the Russian manned space facility in Baikonur, Kazakhstan, en route for the International Space Station. Aboard the capsule are Russian Anton Shkaplerov, NASA’s Terry Virts and European Space Agency astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti of Italy. There was also a small telescope, that will be used in an extraordinary project, Wigner’s friends, that will create a universal show consisting of all possible works of art at once.
‘Nature’s simplest atom and mother of all matter, hydrogen, feeds the stars as well as interlaces the molecules of their biological descendants – to whom it ultimately whispers the secrets of quantum reality’. Hydrogeny continues Evelina and Dmitry’s work in constructing art installations that offer ever-transforming phenomena for the viewer’s observation.
First Light Machine is an original work by J. Wingfield.
By lending a voice to the many discoveries unfolding in the fields of quantum theory, relative physics and cosmology, the author invites the reader to explore – through a poetic view – ideas and images as revealed through advances in theoretical science.
Dmitry Gelfand and Evelina Domnitch create sensory immersion environments that merge physics, chemistry and computer science with uncanny philosophical practices. Current findings, particularly regarding wave phenomena, are employed by the artists to investigate questions of perception and perpetuity.
For Chris Wood, her canvas is glass and her medium is light. She uses one to manipulate the other with subtle interventions placed in the optical plane, harnessing patterns of light into exquisite tiny movies or streams of fluttering images, which recall ephemeral glimpsed moments in the natural world.
Double-slit diffraction is a corner stone of quantum mechanics. It illustrates key features of quantum mechanics: interference and the particle-wave duality of matter. Richard Feynman called the double slit experiment “a phenomenon which is impossible … to explain in any classical way, and which has in it the heart of quantum mechanics. In reality, it contains the only mystery [of quantum mechanics],”
Lucida is an autonomous image-making machine that creates analogue images in real-time, without generating a permanent record. The images defy classification as digital photographs, radiological scans or three-dimensional computer graphics but allude to all three and are believable as scientific images, while existing exclusively as an artwork.
Sidney Perkowitz explores how our knowledge of light’s intangible nature has evolved into deeper understanding – deeper, but incomplete, for light still holds mysteries. Yet we know it well enough to predict its behavior and manipulate it with exquisite finesse for scientific research, technological application, and aesthetic use.
After chasing 67/P Churyumov-Gerasimenko over a cumulative distance of 6.4 billion km over 10 years, Philae, with help from Rosetta, finally caresses the big Stone. One giant historic step!!