Kosmorama, Nova Cinema, movie theatre #9, Saturday March 12, 2016. TIME TBA.
SoN01R
Fredrik De Wilde (BE)
SoN01R is project by Frederik De Wilde in collaboration with Frederik Vanhoutte.
SoN01R is a realtime artistic visualisation and sonification of the quantum vacuum, the lowest energy state and the substrate of our Universe. Sound and image are generated by using a realtime data feed from the Australian National University, Department of Quantum Science lead by Dr. Thomas Seymul. By tapping into a physical quantum source we can generate true random numbers which drive the audiovisual work and give rise to it’s glitch aesthetic. The term ‘Glitch’ may derive from the Yiddish word conveying slippage, and was fittingly popularized by NASA engineers and astronauts. Into Orbit, a 1962 account of Project Mercury, provides one of the earliest usages of the term ‘Glitch’, courtesy of John Glenn, the first American to circumnavigate the globe outside its atmosphere. Quantum fluctuations are Universe glitches and may be fundamental to our existence, hence no coincidence that it was coined in space in orbit.
SoN01R focusses on artistic data visualisation and the question how can one visualise something immaterial, short lived and universal as quantum fluctuations? In classical physics (applicable to macroscopic phenomena), empty space-time is called the vacuum. The classical vacuum is utterly featureless. However, in quantum mechanics (applicable to microscopic phenomena), the vacuum is a much more complex entity. It is far from featureless and far from empty. Quantum fluctuations are the temporary appearance of energetic particles out of nothing, as allowed by the Uncertainty Principle. For example, a particle pair can pop out of the vacuum during a very short time interval, and then annihilate one another in accordance with the Uncertainty Principle.
Frederik De Wilde is an artist, researcher and interfacer, acting on the border, and working on the interstice of, art + [science + technology]. De Wilde studied fine arts, new media art and philosophy. De Wilde is most famous for his blackest black art developed with NASA and Rice University. De Wilde is also co-founder of 2Flamingos, an online webshop where art and science becomes fashion and design (www.2flamingos.com) His artworks have been exhibited in Europe, USA, Asia and Australia.
De Wilde’s art is often experimental and tries to offer new insights in the nature of art, science and technology, how they interact (process) and how it can take shape (result). De Wilde’s artistic vision and ideas can be crystalized into the phrase: ”ART is the poetics of the imagination – SCIENCE is the poetics of reality.” The conceptual crux of his artistic praxis are the notions of the intangible, inaudible, invisible. It is this interstitial territory that Frederik De Wilde explores in his various works. Sometimes on the side of the technological, and often in the perceptual, conceptual, social—human—register. De Wilde’s art is grounded in the interaction between complex systems, both biological and technological. Moreover, the indistinct, diffuse, ‘fuzzy’ arena where the biological and the technological overlap and commingle is a productive and favoured ground for his projects/ projections.
