Accelerated time. Almost a year has sped past. Spent many months working on a 20 metre x 3 metre ’synchrotron art’ mural commission. Created huge files (>60 GB PSD). Literally thousands of layers. Weeks without sleep. 10 variations. Redesigned whole fromt of Synchrotron complex. Had an argument with director about Marcel Duchamp. Then somehow everything […]
I have returned to the Australian Synchrotron after a long break (which was invaluable in giving me a bit of time and space to take in all that I had experienced during the 3 month residency). Over that time I developed some unusual image-manipulation processes that kind of turn spatial images into frequency images (in […]
It has now been exactly a month since my residency at the Synchrotron. I have been doing various experiments with the visual and audio ‘data’ collected during my time there, as well as thinking about the place, the people, the ideas, theories, the processes involved - the distance has been very helpful in […]
The idea for this experiment was developed over the last 2 months from discussions with the accelerator physicists, namely Martin Spencer and Mark Boland, about the delicate balance of extremely complex frequencies needed to make the synchrotron beam actually work, which they call the “synchrotron tune”, at a frequency of about 13.3 MHz. Wondering what […]
Here are some interactive quicktime vr objects derived from experiments done by ‘capturing’ different light sources from the synchrotron optical and infra-red beamlines. Grab and drag to rotate the lightbulbs (note - they may not actually work depending on software and downloadability)
lightobject1.mov
infraredlight.mov
The latest image from the protein crystallography beamline - an Xray image of the lightbulb (dark) against points of atomic-scale xray intereference of about 1 Angstrom (white spots). The image brings together the two very different realms of the directly perceptible macroscopic world, and the molecular universe of particles and energy interference patterns.
Images of the lightbulb specimen in the infra-red beam
These images show the effects of the synchrotron’s infra-red beam upon a transparent object, and from this otherwise invisible energy can be seen. The images above have not been digitally enhanced - the CCDs on the digital camera pick up a certain part of the infra-red (subvisible) […]
Another action packed week… This one saw the delivery of 70 odd gigiabytes of 360 degree video, courtesy of Volker Kuchelmeister from iCinema, who flew down from Sydney with his Point Grey ‘Ladybug’ camera and took hours of footage in the linear accelerator, accelerator ring & storage ring (and then I had to fly up […]
I have been using the optical beamline of the Synchrotron to illuminate objects, via an array of filters, lenses and prisms mounted on an ‘optical workbench’. In particular, I have been using the filtered optical frequencies to illuminate an old incandescent lightbulb from my childhood.. Here is an example of my first ‘experiment’ directly using […]
The Australian Synchrotron is a facility of immense theoretical and technical complexity, which requires scientists and engineers from a wide range of ultra-specialized areas to work together in pursuit of a common yet multifaceted goal. It would be impossible for any one individual to fully understand all the workings and details of such an enterprise. […]