Description
This presentation paper will take as it’s starting point a three-way conversation about visualisations in cosmology that I had with Professor Mark Swinbank and the late Professor Richard Bower - both of the Institute of Computational Cosmology (ICC) at Durham University. The exchange was part of my Leverhulme Fellowship, 'Material Sight: Re-presenting the Spaces of Fundamental Science' 2016-18 that examined the cognitive and imaginative challenges that fundamental science and technology pose, especially for non-scientists.
Our conversation tracked the differences between visualisations that are built from astronomical observations on the one hand and simulations constructed from cosmological data on the other. I was interested in how these differences played out in relation to one of the central critical tenets within my own field - namely, photography’s indexical relationship to the world. In other words, photography as a trace, like a footprint, that denotes ‘this has been’ and connects us to time and space.
Expanding from this starting point, I will show the filmwork installation 'Boulby/Hubble' 2018 that came from the collaboration with Swinbank and Bower at the ICC and that, along with the wider research from 'Material Sight', attempts to connect us sensorially to remote environments.
(Crisp is an artist and is Professor of Contemporary Art at Northumbria University, Newcastle where she co-leads 'The Cultural Negotiation of Science' research group. Her work is represented by Matt’s Gallery, London and is held in several national collections including The Tate, Arts Council Collection, British Council Collection, Government Art Collection and the National Trust.)
