visiblebehindglass

The latest exhibition as part of the residency - a huge presentation case within the Physics Department situated just outside the Cavendish Museum. The work on display is mainly the solid 3D representations of space. In the initial phase of the residency I attempted to assimilate the wide range of processes and activities first year students engaged with. I encountered many concepts initially beyond my understanding of the world but now realise that they very much underpin it. I slowly became preoccupied with a number of these issues. Whilst attending a practical demonstration I can remember the sensation of my mind slightly drifting as yet another truly extraordinary piece of information was imparted but which I was unable to fully comprehend.  In an attempt to grasp an understanding, I started to watch the hands of the demonstrator -  there was an urgency as they used every facility they had to communicate. This space of not knowing appeared to enable a thought, to explore how whilst in the lab scientific concepts and lab processes are communicated through subconscious hand gestures. I developed a series of articulated handheld hinged structures derived from what I call 'laboratory choreography'. The structures mimicked or illustrated the movements made by the hand within the lab that were created whilst explaining scientific processes. The structures represented these movements -  subsequently they were returned to the lab, the movements re-enacted as a form of performative act. This small observation and subsequent body of work has instigated conversation and debate and raised consciousness amongst scientists about how we communicate. I encountered a number of machines that map the topology of surfaces of material. To enable this, they are calibrated to 'fire' matter, electrons, at the material they are investigating. The evidence of this activity is mapped, the space between surface and probe, or the interaction of electrons and material providing answers. The cast work follows a line of enquiry that looks at these phenomena. Science appears to be interested in the surface but what of the space between, the non or negative space, can this be mapped and made physical? I have been making physical something that cannot be seen by casting the negative space of the folding structures that explored the hand gestures, fixing a moment in time.