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Space Sciences Laboratory |
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From August 2005 Semiconductor were awarded the Arts Council England International Artists Fellowship Programme: Art and Space Science at the UC Berkeley Space Sciences Lab., University of California, U.S.A. In partnership with the Leonardo network and NASA. Semiconductor spent five months researching and developing new work. This page documents new works made during their fellowship. Semiconductor will be exhibiting these works during a U.K. touring exhibition late 2007 at Arnolfini and Watershed Bristol, Fabrica Brighton and Sightsonic and BA Festival York.
www.artscouncil.org.uk/internationalfellowships
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Brilliant Noise |
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Performance version 9:38 / DVD version 5:55 (January 2006)
Stereo sound film /additional subwoofer required
Also available as a ten screen surround sound version
Semiconductor: Ruth Jarman and Joseph Gerhardt |
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Brilliant Noise takes us into the data vaults of solar astronomy. After sifting through hundreds of thousands of computer files, made accessible via open access archives, Semiconductor have brought together some of the sun's finest unseen moments. These images have been kept in their most raw form, revealing the energetic particles and solar wind as a rain of white noise. This grainy black and white quality is routinely cleaned up by NASA, hiding the processes and mechanics in action behind the capturing procedure. Most of the imagery has been collected as single snapshots containing additional information, by satellites orbiting the Earth. They are then reorganised into their spectral groups to create time-lapse sequences. The soundtrack highlights the hidden forces at play upon the solar surface, by directly translating areas of intensity within the image brightness into layers of audio manipulation and radio frequencies. |
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Thanks to the following solar observatories whose data archives were used in the making of this film:
Mount Wilson Observatory UCLA
Lasco/SOHO Naval Research Laboratory
Trace, LMSAL
Big Bear Solar Observatory, NJIT
SST, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
Gong/National Solar Observatory/AURA/NSF
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Do You Think Science... |
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12:15 / January 2006
DVD Video/stereo sound
Semiconductor: Ruth Jarman and Joseph Gerhardt |
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By asking a group of space physicists the unanswerable Semiconductor reveal the hidden motivations driving scientists to the outer limits of human knowledge. In an attempt to find meaning within the question, they open a Pandora's Box of limitations within science itself, revealing their own philosophical confines. Issues of faith, medicine and the laws of matter are raised to illustrate the infinitely complex universe we live in.
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Thanks to the following scientists at The Space Sciences Laboratory, UC Berkeley, California, USA. for their contributions to this work:
Stuart Bale, David Brain, John Bonnell, Nahide Craig, Janet Luhmann, Bryan Mendez, Forrest Mozer, Stephen Mende, Ilan Roth, Chris Snead, Charles Townes, Andrew Westphal
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Ways of Making Sense |
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06:44 / January 2006
DVD video/stereo sound
Semiconductor: Ruth Jarman and Joseph Gerhardt |
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How do Space Physicists explain their science? Ways of Making Sense takes us on a tour of the Space Sciences Laboratories, UC Berkeley, revealing the thought processes that go on in and around it. The language used plucks metaphors from our everyday world conjuring bizarre visualisations of the discoveries they describe and the way they build knowledge; we learn of sausages on the sun, simulations that track millions of tiny particles and learn the importance of wiggly lines .
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Thanks to the following scientists at SSL in order of appearance:
Ilan Roth
Janet Luhmann
Stuart Bale
David Brain
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