ASPECTS OF THE ART/SCIENCE EQUATION – MEDIA ART MEETS HIGH ENERGY PHYSICS
Chris Henschke, School of Media & Communication, RMIT University, Mel- bourne, Australia E-mail: [email protected]
Abstract
In this paper the argument is made that formal and methodological relationships exist between media art and particle physics. This argument is supported Fig. 1. Infra-red experiment (untitled detail) © Chris Henschke by examples from artist-in-residence projects under- physics, and these can be revealed taken by Chris Henschke at the Australian Synchro- arts have led to a mistrust of it within the tron. Through the development of collaborative through art / science residencies and experiments using a hands-on and emergent meth- projects. I will use my residency experi- sciences, and even in wider culture. Staf- odology, correlations were found between the two ford writes that ‘cultural bias, convinced disciplines, and material was developed for the ences to support this argument, and alt- hough largely limited to personal pro- of the superiority of written or proposi- production of artworks. The development of, and tional language… devalues sensory af- responses to the works are discussed, and, in con- jects and outcomes, the experiences clusion, a plea is made to artists working with gained during these activities provide fective and kinetic forms of communica- scientific research to be more critically aware and insights into the art / science equation. tion precisely because they often baffle engaged. verbal resolution’ [7]. And yet, although
Keywords: media art, particle physics, Australian Historical and philosophical factors it may seem paradoxical, in science the Synchrotron, CERN The influential physicist and philosopher visualization and ‘witnessing of a phe-
Karl Popper states that scientific discov- nomenon … is essential to its acceptance Introduction in the body of natural knowledge’ [8]. Art and science seem to be very different eries are born from processes of stimula- tion and the release of inspiration, which This has been the case since the time of disciplines, but are they really so una- Faraday, who made drawings to develop like? What happens when art comes into itself is not a scientific or logical pro- cess. Popper argues that every discovery his revolutionary understanding of elec- contact with science in settings such as tromagnetism and used public demon- the Australian Synchrotron and CERN, contains ‘an irrational element or a crea- tive intuition’, which the scientist then strations to increase people’s understand- the European Organization for Nuclear ing of his theories. Research? What results when these ‘critically judges, alters, or rejects’ in accordance with the epistemological worlds collide? The conflicts around the role of images framework of falsifiability [3]. Addition- al non-scientific forces also influence the in science are found even in the heart of The Australian Synchrotron is a device modern physics. The pillars of twentieth two hundred metres in circumference development of scientific “paradigms”, including historical, economic and polit- century physics, Einstein and Heisen- that accelerates electrons to ninety-nine berg, fundamentally disagreed over the percent of the speed of light; it is also the ical factors, as well as the intuitions and passions of the researchers [4]. Such interpretation of the same quantum me- community of scientists, engineers and chanical experiments, to the point where other personnel who harness the energy factors are also present in the develop- ment of art movements; the art critic Heisenberg stated that he found Ein- emitted from the device with which they stein’s visualizations ‘disgusting’ [9]. In conduct experiments. This is done in Ernest Gombrich pointing out that the ‘idea of pure observation has proved a contemporary physics, images are rou- accordance with the empirical method, a tinely used to assist in the analysis of rigorously structured process of develop- mirage in science no less than in art’ [5]. However, unlike the properties the even the most abstract properties (alt- ing theories based upon observations of hough contention over interpretation still natural phenomena. Scientists undertake physical sciences deal with, art does not need to objectively define or illustrate exists). Digital visualization tools are experiments to test their theories against widely used to represent data in physics, the phenomena in question, and, through specifics. Instead, to use an analogy pro- posed by philosopher Barbara Maria and many equivalent tools are used in adjusting both the theory and the exper- digital art. iment, arrive at a clear and precise fit of Stafford, art can be seen as a mirror held up to reflect aspects of the world, which theory to observation. This method Residency at the Australian Synchro- seems to be at odds with the practice of ‘collects and brings within its circumfer- ence all that lies scattered about us and tron, 2007 art, which is popularly perceived as be- The factors described above provided me ing driven by subjective, inward-looking, re-launches it in sharper or cloudier form’ [6]. The mirror of art does not with initial points of connection to the and irrationally inspired individuals [1]. scientists I worked with at the Australian Such clichéd generalizations tend to perfectly reflect reality, nor does it in- tend to. It is more like a fun-house mir- Synchrotron. I undertook two artist resi- describe a superficial disparity between dencies, in 2007 and 2010, respectively these ‘Two Cultures’ [2]. However, I ror, yet its distortions are sometimes constructed with a precision akin to the through the Arts Victoria and the Aus- argue that connections exist between the tralia Council 'Synapse' program, both of disciplines of media art and experimental exactitude found in science. Such image incongruences employed in the visual which were mediated through the Aus- Please reference as: [Author(s)-of-paper] (2013) [Title-of-paper] in Cleland, K., Fisher, L. & Harley, R. (Eds.) Proceedings of the 19th International Symposium of Electronic Art, ISEA2013, Sydney. http://ses.library.usyd.edu.au/handle/2123/9475 Page numbering begins at 1 at the start of the paper. tralian Network for Art and Technology. From discussions with various scientists and engineers at the complex, who all worked in ultra-specialized fields, each of which may take a lifetime to fully understand, I began to realize that the synchrotron is a device of such complex- ity that it is ultimately unknowable. That is, it is impossible for any one person to completely understand all of its scientific and technological dimensions, even among those who build such devices. This state is described by philosopher Jurgen Habermas' term “neue- unubersichlichkeit” – that is, a state of total unsurveyability in the modern Fig. 2. The New Sun (detail) © Chris Henschke world [17]. Habermas posits that this creates a pessimism towards complex The Protein Crystallography beamline is The New Sun (Fig. 2) is a twenty metre technology and its increasing ‘probabil- the highest energy beam at the Synchro- translucent print on acrylic panels that ity of dysfunctional secondary effects’, tron, and allows scientists to see struc- paints a ‘synchrotron portrait’, using the stating ‘forthright “helplessness” more tures on a molecular scale. I set up and synchrotron itself as both the subject of and more replaces attempts to find orien- conducted such an experiment, and de- the work and the brush used to paint it. tation determined by and directed toward veloped animations made from the data The piece was made by collaging the the future. It may be that the situation is taken from an insulin molecule I scanned synchrotron's engineering diagrams with objectively obscure’ [18]. However, in the X-ray beam. I was inspired to un- the light captured from the Optical Diag- given art’s its ability to express that conventionally capture and process the nostics, Infra-Red, Soft X-ray and Pro- which cannot be rationally comprehend- visual data by an eloquent outburst from tein Crystallography beamlines, overlaid ed, can art manifest, and thus maybe a usually reserved scientist, who told me with the visible spectrum of the sun. This even sublimate, such a state of unsur- that seeing the sample on its micron work attempts to convey the overwhelm- veyability? scale would be like gazing up at an infi- ingly complex and yet finely balanced nite sky of endlessly repeated electron nature of the synchrotron. Commis- During my residencies I used digital constellations. My result, empirical in a sioned in 2008, and developed with peo- media to develop processes that brought scientifically meaningless way, sought to ple in the science, engineering, and ex- together different aspects of the practices capture that poetic insight, using the raw ternal relations departments, the work used at the Synchrotron. These processes images to visually create what I felt it was initially designed to be placed in were loosely based on their methods of would be like to inhabit such a micro- front of the actual synchrotron, providing undertaking experiments and collecting cosmic space. an impossible view into the heart of the data and sought to probe the nature of device. The title of the mural is from an materials and in a sense materiality. The Accelerator experiment Einsturzende Neubauten song; the cho- techniques I developed allowed me to During my – residency I was inspired by rus of which is “The new sun burns more bring together formal and conceptual the accelerator physicists’ description of than it illuminates” [19]. Perhaps such elements of the synchrotron in various the precise combination of magnetic critical elements are too subtle, but if I combinations, often with unexpected fields and electric forces in the hundreds used more explicit means such as radia- results. of magnets that drive the Synchrotron, tion symbols, the more reactionary scien- which they call the “synchrotron tune”. tists may not have allowed the work to Infra-red Beamline experiment Several accelerator physicists and I de- be put up. My first hands-on experiment was with veloped a way to modulate the beam the Infra-Red beamline, which uses the with sounds. We conducted a “Cicada ‘Synapse’ residency, 2010 Synchrotron’s infra-red energy to see experiment” – injecting the sound of a Lightcurve was produced during my microscopic and invisible aspects of cicada into the accelerator at a corre- 2010 ‘Synapse’ residency at the synchro- mainly biological material. By “interfer- sponding frequency. For a moment, both tron. It was created in collaboration with ing” with the beam I managed to audio- the cicada and synchrotron sang the accelerator physicist Dr Mark Boland, visually capture and visiblize the infra- same tune, but then the synchrotron who helped develop unique visualisation red energy. The process I used to manip- beam literally crashed. This event gave tools as well as giving poetic descrip- ulate the material was a kind of audio- me a taste of real experimental science, tions of the extreme energies within the visual analogy of the ‘Fourier Trans- and through the error of dumping the synchrotron. The piece is an animated form’, a mathematical function the scien- beam, I was able to connect with the visualization of my subjective interpreta- tists regularly use to analyse energy scientists both methodologically and tion of the heart of the synchrotron (see emissions, which turns spatial visual data socially, via the shared experience of Fig. 3). It formally suggests the structure into frequency data and vice-versa (see doing an experiment whereby nobody and nature of the synchrotron beam, and Fig. 1). knew what the outcome would be until it it is ultimately made of the synchrotron was attempted. light. But it does not seek to illustrate or Protein Crystallography Beamline define exact properties of the synchro- experiment Synchrotron portrait tron; it is more an expression of what I feel the abstract yet ultimately real phys- ics to be. To appropriate a Marxist term, the work is a kind of “concrete abstrac- tion” [13], creating a homogenous yet fragmented vision of a fantastic yet real space of a theoretical yet experimental physics. Through the work I seek to im- part an experiential expression of syn- chrotron space-time, as opposed to an abstract mathematical model. Mathema- tician and philosopher Henri Bergson states that we intuitively perceive nature in ’an uninterrupted continuity of un- foreseeable novelty’ [14]. Bergson ar- gues that this perception underpins sci- Fig. 3. Lightcurve (still from animation) © Chris Henschke entific intelligence, which constructs an abstraction of nature through an artificial being stration of my working process: the ani- atemporality, superimposing states of overly sensationalist and reactionary, mation is one variation of many, where I matter into rigorously organized systems and invoking sci-fi movie style disaster have adjusted the control variables as a … expressible in static terms [15]. For scenarios such as the one described way to audio-visually crystallize con- Bergson, our experience of time and above, on the other. There is also a dan- cepts forming in my mind. I did not find subsequent reduction of it to a calculable ger for the artist’s creativity, that of be- the Asymmetry animations to be as suc- form is innate - we are all by nature ing overwhelmed by the enormity of cessful as Lightcurve, in that they did not mathematicians, and science is just a science, becoming too didactic, and los- convey the emotive essence of the expe- more precise continuation of this capaci- ing one’s expressive freedom and voice. rience, whereas Lightcurve has a more ty [16]. compelling and mesmerizing quality – a The endless loop of Lightcurve also Outcomes and Discussion conclusion I came to from personal ap- conveys the subjective and personal ten- Although the methods I use may seem praisal and responses from people (in- sion of being in an unknowable realm – anathema to science, the technique of cluding scientists) who have seen the moving along a path but realizing you collage does play a role even in the most works in exhibitions and screenings. will never get to the destination. In a precise of disciplines. The physicist Da- sense this manifests the unsurveyability vid Bohm champions the “mental col- After the CERN experience of the Synchrotron and the science that lage” method of connecting seemingly Based on such examples, my working propels it. disparate phenomena or ideas in scien- method can be summed up as: defining Lightcurve also contains an element tific research. He described this as being and isolating factors; controlling condi- critical of the science in use - through the a ‘poetic equating of very different tions; manipulating variables and proper- intense colors and unpleasant sound, it things [in which there is] a kind of ten- ties; analyzing the effects; and using the tries to capture the deadly intensity of sion or vibration in the mind, a high state results to develop and focus the theory or the synchrotron’s ionizing radiation of energy’ [10]. Physicist-cum-anarchist idea. This can also describe the process- (which the external relations department philosopher Paul Feyerabend pushes his es used at a particle accelerator, and in- disarmingly call “light”). methodology much further, advocating dicates methodological correlations do the use of non-scientific methods in sci- exist between media art and experi- Large Hadron Collider experience, entific practice. This approach is mental physics. 2009 summed up by his radical empirical
Through my ongoing collaborations with principle of ‘Anything goes’ [11]. Paired Such experiments undertaken at CERN the scientists at the Australian Synchro- with Joseph Beuys’ edict that ‘Art [is] bring quantum and cosmic physics to- tron, I was invited to visit CERN in the science of freedom’ [12], I developed gether, thus potentially becoming a pri- 2009. I took a tour of the twenty-seven an emergent process, starting with fun- mer for the ultimate doomsday scenario, kilometre underground accelerator and damental properties examined in both art the “quantum disaster”, where an acci- several of the collision detectors, includ- and physics, such as light and sound, dental human-made black hole swallows ing the Large Hadron Collider Beauty space and time, matter and energy. From the world [21]. Cultural theorist Paul experiment (LHCb), which examines such relations, I developed my own Virilio points out the inexorable connec- symmetry breaking in beauty quarks, “visual experiments”, which were kind tion between technology and disaster. magnetic monopoles and antimatter. I of distorted mirrors reflecting formal ‘To invent the train is to invent the de- created a series of Asymmetry animations aspects and processes of synchrotron railment’ proclaims Virilio [22]. He also in response to this, and also tried to man- science. Demonstrating the results of suggests that through contemporary sci- ifest the overwhelming feeling of being these experiments to the scientists drew a ence ‘we are inaugurating an unparal- in there, and the spatiotemporally dis- wide spectrum of responses, ranging leled accident, an accident of reality, the turbing effects the experiment has on the from ridicule to a sense revelation. This accident of space and time’ [23]. These physical locality. I made the works using communicated a lot about how these are some of the issues facing artists photographic and sound recordings I scientists perceive their world.Their re- working in such settings, who must took on site, which I animated using sponses shaped my initial image- avoid being the unquestioning hand- time-displacement algorithms controlled capturing experiments, informing such maiden of science on the one hand, and by the audio [20]. This piece is a demon- pieces as The New Sun, in the sense that it portrays my response to the scientists’ 4. Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revo- ed ‘That does nothing for me’. Such willful igno- description of the device, and lutions (Chicago, U.S.A.: University of Chicago rance does little to help the emerging area of art that Press, 1970) p. 175. works with science. Lightcurve, in that it seeks to express the endless journey that scientific research- 5. Ernest Gombrich, Art & Illusion: a Study in the 25. Beuys [12]. Psychology of Pictorial Representation (Phaidon, ers undertake. 6th edition, 2002) p. 271. 26. Sarat Maharaj, in Miyake Akiko & Hans U. In conclusion, I call upon artists work- Obrist, eds., Bridge the Gap? (Neu-Isenburg, Ger- ing in this area to be more critically 6. Barbara Maria Stafford, Echo Objects, the cogni- many: Verlag der Buchhandlung, 2001) p. 112. tive work of images (Chicago, U.S.A.: University of aware of the science they’re working Chicago Press, 2007) p. 126. with [24]. In Beuys’ words, artists must 7. Barbara Maria Stafford, Good Looking: Essays use the ‘energy of freedom’ [25] with a on the Virtue of Images (Massachusetts, U.S.A.: degree of responsibility. Practicing in MIT Press, 1996) pp. 22-23. such contexts gives artists unique in- 8. D. Gooding, “‘Magnetic Curves’ and the Mag- sights, and allows artists to question netic Field: Experimentation and Representation in scientific research through partaking in the History of a Theory”, in D. Gooding, T. Pinch, it. Whilst not trying to be scientists out- and S. Schaffer eds., The Uses of an Experiment, (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, right, which ‘smacks of the dilettante’ 1989) p. 183. [26], artists should engage with scientists 9. David Bohm & David Peat, Science, Order & on an informed and critical level. Such Creativity (London, U.K.: Routledge, 1987) p. 85. in-situ and collaborative projects give scientists different views of their re- 10. Bohm & Peat [9] p. 33. search and working methods. It also 11. Paul Feyerabend, Against Method (New Jersey, increases their understanding and appre- U.S.A.: Humanities Press, 1975) p. 38. ciation of artistic processes, as I have 12. Joseph Beuys, What is Art – conversations with found from my synchrotron experiences. Joseph Beuys (Clairview Books 2004) p. 10. These kinds of projects produced in such 13. Lukasz Stanek, “Space as Concrete Abstraction, settings are fundamentally art, they are Hegel, Marx and urbanism in Henri Lefebvre”, in not meant to provide new scientific Kanishka Goonewardena, ed., Space, Difference, Everyday Life: Reading Henri Lefebvre (Routledge, knowledge, although they may provide 2008) p. 63. inspiration to scientists. 14. Henri Bergson, The Creative Mind (Westport, As the emerging discipline of art / sci- U.S.A.: Greenwood, 1946) p. 39. ence practice develops, artists can and should advance an appraisal of science 15. Bergson [14] p. 37. that does not necessarily take a pessimis- 16. Michael Vaughan, ‘Introduction: Henri Berg- tic stance. Rather, their approach should son's “Creative Evolution”’, SubStance (Vol. 36, No. 3, Issue 114, 2007) p. 13. encompass science’s profound and posi- tive discoveries, as well its abuses or 17. Jürgen Habermas, The new obscurity: the crisis of the welfare state and the exhaustion of utopian unintentional ill-effects. In addition to energies Phillip Jacobs, trans. (Philosophy & Social critical elements, art / science collabora- Criticism, Sage, 1986) tion also reveals a shared spirit of curios- 18. Jürgen Habermas, The new obscurity: the crisis ity and inquiry. And it releases a funda- of the welfare state and the exhaustion of utopian mental force, akin to Bohm’s “mind energies Phillip Jacobs, trans. (Philosophy & Social energy”. This is then what occurs when Criticism, Sage, 1986) p. 2. these worlds collide – energy is released, 19. Einstürzende Neubauten, Zeichnungen Des the energy of ideas, tensions and possi- Patienten O.T., (Some Bizzare Records, 1983). bilities. Such energy initiates dialogues 20. The experience left me shaking I was so affect- and reveals both differences and com- ed, and the ipod in my pocket was also affected monalities between the two disciplines, somehow by the big magnet I was near and was almost entirely erased. By a twit of fate only the and this can propel both disciplines col- ‘Melvins’ survived – their music is indeed CERN- lectively into new areas of research, dis- proof! covery and creation. 21. John Henley, Will the world end on Wednes- day?