Christopher O'Leary Lecture Notes | Event 2

Christopher O’Leary- Worked with physicists at University of Montana to study black holes-       Jets that fire out superheated materials from either side-       Zoom role orbit – bizarre spiral of two black holes circling each other-       Rendering physicists desciptions through algorithmically generated code-       Generating forces that are science accurate, from gravitational waves recorded in space-       Photographer combining code and wavesounds generated by the spirals-       Artist instinct push and pull with physicist’s ideas – balance between being accurate and being an aesthetic experience-       5gb text file of sheer numbers-       Installation- giant projection of the baby crawling around the spiral

Experience motivated him to craft his art-       Inspired by Richard Feynman lectures, Feynman diagrams-       Light paint a Feynman diagram of his studio-       Some representation of science, using the surface of the image, and the figure is there-       Had been working on project for years and didn’t know it

Griffith Observatory Cloud Chamber-       Current project in the basement of the Griffith Obsevatory-       Device invented in the early 20^th century, a plexiglass box full of supercooled vapor-       Cosmic rays and particles from the sun, combined with background radiation, magnetizes the vapor, which renders particles in the gas-       Lines that you see within the vapor comes from stars and other planetary forces, renders something that is always present but never visible-       Interested in ways to visualize the invisible through imagery-       Relatively easy to make!-       Met with director of Griffith (Dr. Krum?), who researches archaea-astronomy, studying ancient people’s understanding of the universe-       Is there a cultural context of this in the 20^th century? How do we come to understand these things from a culture perspective.-       This isn’t education, this is spectacle – putting your body in the relationship with galactic scale-       Metaphor for his project – rendering the invisible (theme of his work!) Other Inspirations-       Rendering of a cloud chamber onto an audio record-       Instructions of how to make something in the gallery, done by other people, much like code or generative animation-       Trevor Paglan – interested in surveillance, figures out where spy satellites are in the sky, positions himself, and photographs it zipping through the sky (uncovering things in the landscape)-       Alan Seccula – documentation of labor and commerce – documentary/video following shipping company moving around the world-       All of these are interesting to him because science and cosmology interact with the landscape in really interesting ways

To The Future-       Dark matter detector (Occidental College)o   Physically attempting to capture dark mattero   Device Name: Time Projection Device (science fiction come to life!)o   Ultimately will be deployed in a mine deep underground in England-       Close-up photograph – you can see fine lines that are threads of steel that the scientists weave themselves (detection devices)-       Maybe once in a few years, a reaction will happen – dark matter will hit a nucleus and an electron will bounce off and be detected by the steel-       Shiny silky metallic in the middle – solar sail where light pushes the sail-       Use code to rip apart the image and mark it from that perspective – you’re visualizing the flow of the galaxy rather than viewing a static image-       SETI (search for extraterrestrial intelligence)o   Research institution founded in Berkeley, crowdsourcing platform, first crowdsourcing ever!o   Understanding the priorities of these is important to O’Learyo   Slowly turn in arcs and listen to different patches of the galaxyo   Taking data from these things (noise), combing through the “fuzz” to create a giant panorama – visual representation of jpg fuzzo   Interested in overlaying them and it’ll slowly turn into starso   Interesting that it is sound, but people are not asked to listen, they are asked to look.o   Fuzz is maybe information that we can’t understand, we are seeking signals from our perspective when those signals might not actually exist-       Buckminster Fuller – The most amazing poetry of the 20^th century is e=mc^2