Space Messengers: A mixed reality projection and youth workshop

Projecting Particles Collective

Lead Artists: Agnes Chavez/Creative producer and artist, Markus Dorninger/OMAi team/Projection artist, and Roy MacDonald, creative coder. Sound design: David Novack. Interdisciplinary speakers/facilitators: Dr. Steven Goldfarb, CERN physicist; Dr. Nicole Lloyd-Ronning, LANL astrophysicist; Steve Tamayo, Lakota Cultural Specialist; Catarina Pombo Nabais, Philosophy of Science/University of Lisbon; Frank Tavares, NASA Communication Specialist; Ali Guarnero Lunas, NASA Aerospace Engineer. Curriculum  Advisors: Shane Wood, Quarknet staff; Dr. Greg Cajete, Native-American Author/cultural specialist. Visual Program Designer: Estacia Huddleston. Multi-media/Tech development and support: OMAi/Tagtool team/Josef Dorninger and Matthias Fritz;  Enrico Trujillo, University of New Mexico. STEAM Ambassadors: Dania Loya, New Mexico; Joana D’Arc Moreira, Brazil; Amina Abdrazakova, Canada.

Special thanks to our sponsors:  U.S Embassy of Portugal, Citizen Diplomacy Action Fund, U.S. Consulate General of Guadalajara.

Fluidic Data: When Art Meets CERN, Data Flows

Fluidic Data is a floor-to-ceiling installation spanning the four levels of the CERN Data Centre stairwell. It utilizes the interplay of water and light to visualize the magnitude and flow of information coming from the four major LHC experiments. The installation consists of an array of transparent hoses that house colored fluid, symbolizing the data of each experiment, surrounded by a collection of diffractive "pods" representing the particles pivotal to each experiment. The organic fusion of art and science engenders a meditative environment, allowing the visitor time for reflection and curiosity.

The Fluidic Data installation is a cross department collaboration that incorporates materials and techniques used in the construction of the LHC and its experiments. The project brings together artists, engineers, science communicators and physicists with a common goal of communicating CERN's research and resources. The success of this collaboration exemplifies the effectiveness of working in diverse teams, both intellectually and culturally, to accomplish unique projects. https://indico.cern.ch/event/773049/contributions/3474847/

(x)trees: a dynamically generating forest of trees from SMS and tweets

(x)trees is a dynamically generating forest of trees created from SMS and Tweets from the audience in real time. It is projected in real time on to buildings and large spaces, exploring our relationship to nature and technology.  (x)trees tours around the world creating a participatory experience to raise awareness to ecological topics such as deforestation and climate change. By integrating data mining from SMS and social networks, people participate in the creation of the branches to form a virtual interactive forest of dynamically generating trees. The audience sends a tweet or text message and sees their message appear on the wall with a branch. Archived messages include articles from the Universal Declaration of Rights for Mother Earth and the Outer Space Treaty of 1967.  (x)trees programmers: v.1: Jared Tarbell. Original concept and browser-based code written in Flash, v.2: Jeff Milton and Joe Roth, v.3: Alessandro Saccoia. Converted to OpenFrameWorks, v.4: Kamen Dimitrov, v.5: Roy MacDonald

Contact us to bring (x)trees to your festival or community event. Keywords can be customized to the topic or event.

Origination Point explores the origins of the universe through generative light and sound

Origination Point is a generative interactive projection installation originally exhibited at the 12th Havana Biennial in Havana, Cuba as part of the collective exhibit Entre, Dentro, Fuera/Between, Inside, Outside and in 2016 at The Harwood Museum, Taos, New Mexico.

As part of Agnes Chavez’s Projecting Particles series and inspired by her Educational Outreach research stay at ATLAS@CERN in Geneva Switzerland, this work explores spacetime, our origins in the universe and how matter was created after the big bang through the newly discovered Higgs field. In Origination Point, Chavez contemplates humanity’s shared subatomic origins in relation to her Cuban-American origins to express that we are more than the physical bodies and socio-cultural identities we construct.

Through a collaboration with artist Marcel Schwittlick, who programmed the code, Origination Point features images of self-generating ‘rocks’ that are transformed in real time exploring the evolution of matter and our wave/particle duality. The images are projected onto a wall of hanging fabric strips creating mesmerizing movements in rhythm with an interactive soundtrack. The interactive composition designed and programmed by sound designer Robert Schirmer includes sounds from NASA’s field recordings of outer space accompanied by terrestrial nature sounds. Through an interactive sensor the visitor moves rocks in and out of a circle on the ground. This process adds layers of water, space and earth sounds designed to shift one’s perception and emotional response to the projected visuals.

Collaborating Team: Artists: Agnes Chavez (artist/concept), Marcel Schwittlick (visual artist/coder), Robert Schirmer (interactive sound). Special thanks to UNM Art Graduate Student assistants in Havana: Abbey Hepner, Christine Posner, Julianne Aguilar, Adrian Pijoan

Origination Point is available for commission as a temporary indoor installation