Dreams Like Cherenkov

FESCH.TV INFORMIERT:

December 2021 in Providence, RI
medium: video projected on salt and melatonin-coated bedsheet forms, acetate, smoke holograms
dimensions: 12 ft h x 14ft w x 20 ft d (as installed- dimensions variable)
5 min 45 sec (loop)
View installation video:

Video materials: Animation of photogram of the top view of an open-pool nuclear reactor looking down into the reactor and the Cherenkov radiation. Microscope video recordings of irradiated fruit, sliced into slides and dyed with blue slide ink. Waveforms and audio generated from 100 nights of the artist sleeping as recorded with the “Sleep Cycle” App, Video of the artist skating.

Audio: Audio generated from 100 nights of the artist sleeping as recorded with the “Sleep Cycle” App, linked together into one long waveform and then coded into sound using GNU Octave (sounds like static). Archival home video/audio recordings of the artist and her father discussing figure skating, video, and art, spanning a 24-year range. Shepard scales made from brief samples of music playing in the background of home video recordings. Recordings of conversation while listening to the Voyager Probes’ “Golden Record”. Recordings of discussions at CCRI Margaret M. Jacoby Observatory.

Installation: Bedsheets slept in while sleep was being recorded covered in salt and melatonin, light, fog, acetate, table.

Notes on materials listed:
Cherenkov radiation is electromagnetic radiation emitted when a charged particle (such as an electron) passes through a dielectric medium (such as water) at a speed greater than the phase velocity (speed of propagation of a wavefront in a medium) of light in that medium. In an open-pool reactor, beta particles (high-energy electrons) are released as the fission products decay. These beta particles can travel faster through the water than the speed of light can through water, resulting in the photons traveling in overlapping waveforms that create constructing interference we see as a blue glow.

Fruit irradiation is a common methodology for slowing down the aging/rotting of fruit.

The Golden Record is an audio-visual recording of sounds and images selected to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth, included on Voyagers 1 and 2, space probes launched in 1977. Included on it are spoken greetings in 55 ancient and modern languages, music selections from different cultures and eras, 115 images, and a montage of natural and machine sounds, including human EEG and EKG recordings. The record itself is estimated to have a playable shelf-life of a billion years. The Voyager 1 probe could continue on indefinitely until it collides with another object.

A Shepard tone is a sound consisting of a superposition of sine waves separated by octaves. When played with the bass pitch of the tone moving upward or downward, it is referred to as a Shepard scale. This creates the auditory illusion of a scale that seems to continually ascend or descend in pitch, yet which ultimately gets no higher or lower.