Cosmoscope

November 2017, Durham Lumiere Festival

January 2018, London Lumiere

Cosmoscope links biomedical science with earth science and astrophysics in a lesson in humility and humanity. From the infinitely small to the infinitely great, Cosmoscope draws on the latest advances in scientific research and our ability to look into worlds deeper than we ever have, to re-examine the human body and the cosmos as parts of a larger whole. An exploration into different scales, it combines a compelling aesthetic and a powerful narrative to introduce the widest and most diverse audience to the beauty and wonder of life, offering a Res Publica Scientia that aims to democratise science.

The work was researched in collaboration with psychologist Monia Brizzi, Dr Simon Walker-Samuel Centre for Biomedical Imaging, UCL, Professor Richard Bower The Ogden Centre for Fundamental Physics, Durham and Professor Andrew Goodwin The Inorganic Chemistry Laboratory, Oxford.

Cosmoscope was produced  in partnership with London-based cultural agency Artichoke to produce a monumental sound and light sculpture, 'Cosmoscope', forming the centrepiece of the Durham Lumiere festival in 2017.

The music for Cosmoscope is a musical orrery - a play on the ‘Astronomical Clock’ (as found in Durham cathedral - Prior Castell's clock  - and elsewhere) – a huge cyclic sonic construction that pulses and phases at intervals on the macro and micro-structure.

It is easy to perceive our universe as an entirely regular oscillatory mechanism  - but what happens when events disturb this regularity?  The ‘second’ – is measured on the micro-scale, with its duration taken from the oscillation of sample atoms in Ceasium-133.  What happens when time is disturbed on the micro level?

Cosmoscope is about scale – from the very small, to the very large.  We understand the size of space in terms of acoustics.  A sound can be heard within a container – something that ‘a sound’ is held in – a building, space.  But size and scale, and the direct analogy is interesting in terms of their inappropriateness to other aspects of sound. 

When a sound is so short… - it is perceived as a click by a human being.  When a sustained sound is so long… - its duration becomes difficult to measure accurately by the same human (without the aid of time keeping devices).  We have a greater understanding of time within music through transitions - slow to fast (pulse to pitch), when is a pulse so slow that it is no longer perceived as a pulse…?  Why does randomness sound regular and why can order sound chaotic? Entropy and disorder.

Audio Stereo Render of Gallery version (extract - 7.1

to stereo)

Cosmo_Gallery_RenderExtract.mp3

Audio Stereo Render of Final Version (16.4 mix to stereo)

CosmoHourRender_StereoMix.mp3

Cosmoscope Timelapse - Cosmoscope in 2 minutes

Cosmoscope Video - linear video demo

Funded by a Wellcome Trust Large Arts Award

with the Artichoke Trust 2015

http://simeon-nelson.com/index.php/cosmoscope-2//