Tim Meyer, Head of the Communication Department at TRIUMF introducing the workshop.
Physicist Kendall Mahn presenting the physics problem to the artists.
The artists David Khang, Ben Reeves, Randy Lee Cutler and Stefan Smulovitz, in the background Jennifer Gagné of the TRIUMF Communication Department.
On Sept 7th 2012, with an extraordinary encounter of artists and physicists the Goethe Satellite@Vancouver RAW DATA project was launched.
Artists were informed about a specific quantum physics problem to which they will respond with an artwork. In an all day workshop held at TRIUMF - Canada’s National Laboratory for Particle and Nuclear Physics, Vancouver/CA, artists Randy Lee Cutler, David Khang, Ben Reeves and Stefan Smulovitz were involved in an actual physics research project to gain knowledge on what are the current “hot spots” in the physics world.
The physicist Kendall Mahn, along with her colleagues Reda Tafirout and Abhishek Kumar, gave detailed insights into the subatomic world and highlighted a research topic which served as inspiration for an artistic chain reaction. In three weeks the produced art works are passed on to four other artists (who will not know the original physics problem), Dennis Burke, Ingrid Koenig, Sonnet L´Abbé and Suzi Webster, for another round of transformations.
Ideas spread, leaping from one creative mind to the next, resulting in an outcome interdependence of artistic works, all referring to the same initial subject. As a result of this movement, the aspects of inspiration and influence that usually remain obscure in other artistic creative processes are focussed on and can be discussed:
What was referred to? Where does an idea run all the way through? Where has a subject been dropped?
And most important, looking back at the original problem: what was its impact?
Physicists Abishek Kumar and Reda Tafirout discussing with artists.
Kendall Mahn, Randy Lee Cutler, Ben Reeves and Elvira Hufschmid continued the discussion during the break.
Nigel S. Lockyer, Director of TRIUMF
The artist David Khang and physicists Abishek Kumar and Reda Tafirout.
Curators and process designers Ingrid Koenig, Margit Schild and Elvira Hufschmid.
The artists Randy Lee Cutler, David Khang, Ben Reeves and Stefan Smulovitz and audience.
