Suspension of disbelief (2010)
Suspension of disbelief is an installation derived from a nineteen-century experiment in the study of storms. A chemical reaction transforms the interior of a glass box in an unstable space capable of showing the peculiar parade of a kind of energy (natural radiation) that our bodies are incapable of perceiving.
A supersaturated cloud of isopropyl alcohol (99% of purity) permeates the sealed environment (glass box), its lower portion chilled using dry ice (-78.5 °C, -109.3F). The supersaturated alcohol forms a thing layer over the cooled surface. Within this plane, elemental particles appear with the aid of a strong source of light. The traveling particles ionize the alcohol droplets, rendering their path visible. These particles – muons and electrons – are a consequence of Cosmic Rays originating outside the solar system and, in less proportion, in the sun. The average speed of these particles is 0.998c (299.400 km/s) and their lifetime is in the order of microseconds. The fact that we are able to see them is explained by the theory of relativity: the particles are moving at the speed of light with a lifetime of microseconds in their time. In our time, however, this lifetime is long enough to render the particle trail visible.
I have chosen to work with the diffusion cloud chamber because of its ability to render visibly the chaotic movement of elemental particles. Designed to study weather phenomena, it was intended to imitate nature by replicating the emergence of clouds. The experiment failed to explain this phenomenon but in return produced an unexpected observation. The particles paths rendered by the chamber became a new visual vocabulary for the study of the subatomic world.
The idea of observing the effects of fundamental particles reflects my desire to recreate this major discovery and to verify it with my own eyes. The direct experience of the phenomenon enables a type of knowledge that cannot be communicated through language.
Situated outside our everyday experience, and at the same time seemingly unmediated, the cloud chamber exists in a territory that extends the familiar into the imperceptible. The project presents itself as the enabler of a context. Within this context, we see for the first time.
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