Conversations by the Creek | A Curious Collaboration? The Art and Science of ‘Sounds of Space’

Conversations Across the Creek is an initiative by the Humanities Research Centre (HRC) and the Research School of Chemistry (RSC) to provide a space for continuing dialogue among scientists, social scientists, and humanities scholars. Meetings are held monthly, with the aim of stimulating and unearthing research and teaching collaborations across the university.

Join us for the fourth Conversation for 2019, where three diverse scholars present on their latest research. The topic of this event is A Curious Collaboration? The Art and Science of ‘Sounds of Space’.

 
‘Sounds of Space’ is a cross-disciplinary, collaborative project led by a space weather scientist from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) and an artist-engineer. It began in 2016 with a brief for artists to work with scientists which BAS participated in. The intention for the artist is to visualise, perform and interpret the best practice science research creatively, inviting a scientists to show their research from a different perspective. This has led to a series of shows in the UK at BAS in addition to art science festivals such as Blue Dot 2019. Works derived from the process were also exhibited at the Venice Biennale. The ‘shows’ include a science presentation by Dr Nigel Meredith, Space Weather scientist from BAS, followed by an art ‘experience’ curated by Diana Scarborough a sound-led journey through time and space encountering space storms, gravitational waves and ancient air with ‘data as audio’ as a fundamental element. Recent realisations of ‘Sounds of Space' use the compositional and sonic representation skills of the ANU’s Kim Cunio and contemporary dancer Becky Byers, who brings an emotional and personal narrative to the performance.

This Conversation will present the thoughts of Dr Nigel Meredith and show a number of examples of the project and the larger context in the UK. The 'Sounds of Space' project and similar initiatives challenge us to think about how art and science can be partners in making meaning out of data, giving a greater academic and cultural weight to the term “data as art”.

 
Speakers:

• Diana Scarborough, Artist-engineer, UK
• Professor Frank Millward, ANU School of Music
• Dr Brad Tucker, Mount Stromlo Observatory, Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics 

 
Please register - light lunch provided.