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RSAA News of the Month: March 2005

Images from "Between Light and Dark Matters"

RSAA hosts art exhibition based on recent astronomical research results

During December and January, Drs Bruce Peterson and Simon Driver and vacation scholar Giles Read prepared the hundreds of plots that would be assembled into the completed artwork of ANU School of Art doctoral candidate, Ms Ruth Watson. Her work, titled "Between Light Dark Matters", was a 12 metre diameter map of the Universe comprising thousands of tiled prints on the floor of the former Yale-Columbia dome. The artwork was specifically created for the site at Mount Stromlo Observatory and exhibited over last weekend of February 2005. Ms Watson's work used data from the 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey as the basis of its imagery. ANU astronomers based at Mt Stromlo pioneered much of the work of the international 2dFGRS collaboration, which revealed the structure, age and composition of the Universe.

Here is Giles at the computer, churning out the plots.

Ruth assembled the huge mosaic on Wednesday and Thursday, Feb 23, 24. The weather did not look co-operative, so the covers were rolled out, and removed for the official opening on Thursday evening. Some slight wrinkling occured, courtesy of the wind and moisture. RSAA staff pointed out that these could represent wrinkles in the space-time continuum.

The weather remained fine for the opening on Thursday 24th. RSAA Director, Professor Penny Sackett opened the exhibition, commenting on the fusion of art and science which produced this visualization of one of the largest data sets ever assembled.

Professor Adam Shoemaker, Dean of the ANU Faculty of Arts, and Mr Nigel Lendon, Deputy Director of the School of Art, also officiated.

The huge work was then inspected by the crowd. It survived close inspection by RSAA students, and by fascinated children.

Dr Bruce Peterson was on hand to explain the science lurking in the artwork, and Ruth was kept busy with interviews and photographs.

The above images have also been added to the RSAA Gallery where they can be viewed as a slideshow, or, for high bandwidth connections a 50MB movie about the project may be of interest (Quicktime format).

 

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