Brilliant noise

From 2005 to 2006 UK artists Ruth Jarman and Joseph Gerhardt – known as Semiconductor – explored the Space Sciences Laboratories in the US. Here we learn how the scientists slowly came round to idea of artists in the ranks, and why convincing astrophysicists not to tweak rough images made for the most brillaint noise

During 2005 - 2006 Semiconductor they were awarded an Arts Council England international artists fellowship at the Space Sciences Laboratories at UC Berkeley (SSL), USA, in collaboration with Leonardo and the Centre for Science Education, SSL.

The brief was very open - to go to the Space Sciences Laboratory and research. We arrived with no more than a general knowledge of the science and hoped we could use this naivety to our advantage. By learning from scratch we wanted to take on the role of detectives. It was an appealing yet challenging experiment to start with a blank canvas. We devised a method of approach; the framework was based on a process of exchange, integrating into the daily life of the Lab by interviewing scientists and visually documenting places and happenings. There was no way to anticipate how the SSL community would respond to us, yet this approach was dependent on building relationships with them for it to work.

Early on we were to give a presentation of our artwork to the scientists, it felt like a make or break situation. This was our chance to stimulate enough interest in our presence and start some form of dialogue. We had considered how we should approach presenting our work to scientists and were advised not to change or simplify how we talked about it.  But we wanted to give the work more context to emphasise the considerations in our work that we would normally take for granted. After all, this was really a call for help. During the pre-talk reception we had our first scientist encounter, which took more of a political twist. Who was paying for us to be there? Were their NASA budgets being used to send them artists instead of answering the more important questions of the dynamics of electrons in space? We think we passed.

Knock on effects were to occur throughout our time at SSL as a result of the presentation we gave. It was like a slow release - as scientists found a good moment to approach us, they would feed us their knowledge, which in some way, would relate to our work. They reached out to us on the campus bus, over lunch, around the Lab. and via e-mail. One scientist approached us soon after our presentation, running up and whispering “Do you know about Helioseismology?” and then promptly whisked himself away. He explained later that he had been in a hurry and then went on to describe Sunquakes. It was exciting that the scientists were motivated to introduce us to areas of space science after seeing what we do. We were getting lots of reference points, and being sent on different journeys of discovery. It was like having our own living, talking reference library.

A two part tour was also offered our way. This would be our initiation into life at the Lab; we visited engineers building satellite experiments, scientists at their computers, and clean rooms where instruments were being put through their paces in thermal vacuum chambers. It revealed to us the wealth of activity at SSL, and even took our guide to places he had never visited. This opportunity gave us grounding; it introduced us to places and people we would revisit throughout our time at SSL, and gave us confidence to explore unknown territories and approach scientists. It became clear that by simply making our faces known, touring places and hanging around corridors, new doors opened to us. As time progressed we would drop by labs to see what was happening, filming and chatting, these meanderings became daily staples. We got pulled into life at the Lab, sharing joys and anxieties - highs as satellites were safely delivered to be tested and lows when the testing revealed flaws in the machine. We became temporarily, a part of their world.

During the weeks running up to our departure for SSL we decided it would be beneficial to interview some of the scientists on video, as a way to get to grips with things. Armed with a list of disparate questions we revisited scientists who we had met on the tour - aurora specialists, plasma and solar physicists. It was more than the raw science that interested us; we wanted to learn about processes, modes of interpretation, the structure of working at SSL, theories on science, current missions and more and more. In our eyes, we had arrived in the middle of a story and we needed to delve about to figure it all out, and as a possible bonus, we would gain some scientific knowledge along the way. We wanted this process to become something more than just a learning experience for us though. How were we going to give something back to the scientists? At this stage, it was unclear what form this could take.

There was never an appropriate time to arrange these interviews, as the scientists were either working to deadlines or off spreading the word of science. Initially we would be promised fifteen minute interview slots, and these would often take place on the spur of the moment. It was a case of now or never. With little experience of interviewing we needed to be highly efficient, quickly acquiring new skills on the fly; learning how to steer topics of discussion and feeding pertinent questions. All of this was without actually understanding the finer details of the discussion. It was extremely easy to feel intimidated by their knowledge and expertise. As we ploughed through questions exposing our naivety, the scientists were extremely gracious and patiently led us through specific areas of space science. We reached a point where we realised we had been absorbing new knowledge; comprehending ideas, problems, approaches, and techniques as they came about again and again. With scientists always on standby to demistify it, the science started to make sense. What we were learning fascinated us. Also, our desire to learn and be inspired seemed enough to warrant their time, and as a result we were invited back, time and time again. One scientist expressed joy at us encouraging him to tell us about the finer details of an experiment he was running, expressing that his family wouldn’t let him talk to them about space physics anymore.

Our initial intention was to use the recordings as a learning device, a means to explore the science and document our findings, giving us an opportunity to revisit the conversations. We would often not recall exactly what had been discussed in each interview; we were concentrating so hard on getting the mechanics right, that recording them became invaluable. But, very early on it became clear that interviewing was going to be a creative process in itself. Considerations emerged that we hadn’t anticipated. The interviews were abundant with elaborate thought processes and philosophies, scientists we’re dedicatedly exploring with us the science of science, and it was difficult to ignore the context. They would also pull us into their world using rich visual and verbal language, gestures and descriptions. By plucking metaphors from our everyday world they could conjure in our minds bizarre visualisations; we learnt of sausages on the sun, simulations that track millions of tiny particles and about the importance of wiggly lines. It became clear that we would develop some artworks using the interview footage directly, to probe beyond the science, into the world of scientists themselves. It was never our intention to be sociologists, but it was a welcome by-product.

An alternative source of knowledge came from the weekly Friday colloquiums, where scientists would make Power Point presentations, reporting results from their field of study. We arrived at our first colloquium to find a room of scientists sitting around eating ice cream and discussing the knack of falling asleep unnoticed. (Amazingly though, the people who did fall asleep were always the first ones to ask questions). This was the moment we realised we were not in the stereotype of a NASA space science Lab as one might expect. During these occasions we became captivated by the language they used to explain their ideas to each other, and how by lacking knowledge, to us it was seemingly a foreign language. It was often difficult for us to distinguish between results, as the same format graphs and visuals were used to represent multiple data week to week. After one colloquium, when the presenter found out we had been there, he was embarrassed that he hadn’t simplified it for us. There we were feeling inadequate when all along scientists would be taking our needs into consideration. Our role became more clearly defined through these experieces. It was clear we weren’t expected to understand the science but that our enthusiasm and research endeavours could encourage the scientists to reflect on what they do from a different perspective. They were eager to see how we would interpret what they do, and what we would take away from this experience. We made an important discovery during these sessions; we couldn’t help but notice the similarity in many of the scientific working processes compared to ours as artists. Although the end product is very different, the method is very similar. We never expected to find we had things in common. Our position remained fixed although we would continue to refer to them as The Scientists as we would be refered to by them, as The Artists.

You can catch the exhibitions in Bristol throughout April 1st-20th April Installations of Brilliant Noise, Magnetic Movie and Do You think science... at the Arnolfini gallery 5th April Semiconductor presentation on their experiences at the NASA space sciences laboratory and screenings of their new space science related works. Space scientist Chris Davis from the STFC reveals the science behind the solar images as well as current NASA missions to the sun. And during the Spring at Sightsonic as part of the York international festival of digital arts (details tbc).

Our lives at SSL quickly took structure. Interviews were taking up a lot of our time, not just the recording of them but backing them up, sifting through them and organising them. Another daily activity became the process of accessing and acquiring data from solar image archives. Soon after our arrival we had come across some imagery whilst ploughing through general SSL image archives, and there were a few stills from a satellite whose job it is to watch the sun. We were looking at the raw image files, which are a world apart from the sanitised version they finsih up as, after being coloured, de-noised and smoothed over. There was something so revealing about them which their final form didn’t portray. They revealed the flaws and methodology, and looked more like early 20th century photography, rather than what you would imagine hi-tech satellite imagery to be. All of this somehow makes it easier to understand what you are looking at, although it doesn’t make it any less mind-boggling. For months we were to be continuously downloading gigabytes of data with the aid of several scientists who would help demystify the complex process involved. Thanks to the scientists who made their valuable data open source, we had hit a goldmine.

During a trip to NASA Goddard Space Flight Centre we met some of the archivists for one of the solar satellites, who were keen to aid us in our search. It was their job to clean up these images and it took a lot of convincing that, yes, we definitely were interested in the raw images and no, they weren’t ugly, quite the contrary. Many scientists beyond SSL gave us their time and went out of their way to help us in this way. As well as visiting Goddard and being given a busy schedule, touring massive clean rooms, visiting the visualisation centre, and meeting scientists working on sonfication of space science data, we had an organised tour of NASA Ames visiting the super computing facility and seeing the world’s largest wind tunnel. Also, a solar physicist at SSL hooked us up with Wilcox Solar Observatory in Stanford, and they invited us down on a sunny day to observe how they collect magnetograms of the Sun. Charles Townes, a Nobel Prize Winner based at SSL had a week long symposium in honour of his 90th year. International scientists flocked to Berkeley to pay respect to the man who invented the Laser by discussing the future of science. A grand finale of an excursion was to the week long AGM (American Geophysical Union Conference). After fine tuning our science negotiation skills for several months we got to put them into practice, convincing scientists in the solar community, to let us photograph them and their work. This would be presented in the form of a poster pinned on a board. Not only did these report their scientific findings but also revealed a lot about their maker. 

Although the focus of the fellowship was on research and experimentation, we had completed three pieces of work by the time we were to leave. The luxury of space and time the research emphasis gave us meant that some pieces of work came about quite naturally. We have used interview footage to complete two pieces of video works so far.
One of them is called Ways of Making Sense - it takes a look at how space physicists explain their science, taking us on a tour of SSL and revealing the thought processes that go on in and around it. The second piece is called Do You Think Science…, were we asked all the scientists we interviewed if they thought science could understand everything? By asking them this unanswerable question, we revealed hidden motivations driving them to the outer limits of human knowledge, and in an attempt to find meaning within the question; they open up a Pandora’s Box of science itself. Issues of faith, medicine and the laws of matter are raised to illustrate the infinitely complex universe we live in.

The third work, Brilliant Noise, is the result of our solar archive trawling. It has become a homage to the solar physicists work at SSL; by revealing the processes and uncertainties of what we are seeing, it affirms as much about mans relationship to the Sun as it does its monstrous power.

As we departed SSL it didn’t feel like the end. The Sun/Earth relationship has provided us with an absorbing scientific focus and we have only just begun to rummage around. With such a short time that has passed since our return it is difficult to fully get to grips with the magnitude of the effect it has had on our lives. All we know at this stage is that we didn’t want to leave, and as we joined scientists on our final bus journey home from the Lab. it was a golden moment to hear “you’re not going already?”

The works made as a result of our time at SSL will form part of a series of exhibitions in 2007/08 in the UK. It will include future art works that we have planned as a direct result of the science we have learnt.

We have also been put in touch with several other world wide Solar Observatories, and we are keen for visits to explore and document their work to become a future project. Thank you to all at SSL especially the CSE team.

To find out more go to:
w: www.semiconductorfilms.com
w: www.semiconductorfilms.blogspot.com