science – Agnes Chavez Studio

Neutrino Cloud (of Probabilities)

August 4, 2024 artist residency, Arts, research, science, STEAM, technology

R&D collaborations

The past three months have been intensely focused on the art and tech research and development for the neutrino [AR] installation. In May, while I was at my studio in Berlin, I took the opportunity to fly over to CERN to meet with my colleagues and do some research on neutrinos. Dr. Steven Goldfarb, has been my science mentor and collaborator since 2013 and we met to catch up. Roy MaDonald, coder on the project, joined me on this trip so we can work on ideas and a schedule to start building the AR installation inspired by neutrinos. We had several meetings with Dr. Umut Kose, whose work specializes in neutrinos for a crash course and to answer questions. Umut was a collaborator on the Fluidic Data installation in 2018 and he provided valuable information and ideas for this new collaboration. Roy and I continued working together in Berlin and by the end of the month had a design ready to build upon my return to Taos.

Dr. Steven Goldfarb (left) with Roy Macdonald (right)

Augmented Reality experiments

Below are some images from the final installation, Neutrino Cloud (of Probabilities), in various stages of development. The printing and mounting was done by Barry Norris studio in Taos with AR consulting and graphic design assistance by Alison Johnson. The final metal sculpture built by master machinist, John MacArthur, holds a photomultiplier tube, used in neutrino experiments to detect neutrinos. When the viewer scans a QR code and then points their phone at the disk at the base of the sculpture, a generative animation appears through their phone which creates a feeling of wonder and awe.

Video of AR experience

Also during this time period, we have been developing spin-off AR installations that have emerged from this research. These have been working in collaboration with STEMarts youth ambassadors to engage them in this sci-art project. We presented an Augmented Reality Sky Hunt at the Los Alamos ScienceFest at the same time that the neutrino installation was showing. Both of these AR platforms now allow us to create new AR experiences to communicate science concepts.

Synopsis

Below is the synopsis for the final installation which was presented at the Fuller Lodge Art Center, Los Alamos sci-art exhibit curated by Jacquelyn Connolly.

Neutrino Cloud (of Probabilities): A dynamic, interactive augmented reality experience

Artists: Agnes Chavez, FRA Guest Artist at Fermilab, concept and design, Roy Macdonald, creative consultant, John MacArthur, Metal sculpture , Dr. Umut Kose and Innes E. Bigaran, neutrino physicists, AR consultant/graphic design: Alison Johnson

This mixed reality (AR) experience is inspired by *neutrinos—tiny subatomic particles often referred to as “ghost particles.” Despite their minimal interaction with matter, neutrinos are among the most abundant particles in the universe. Upon activation, you’ll witness generative visualizations inspired by the behaviors and properties of these quantum particles. The sculpture features a *photomultiplier tube (PMT) bulb, a key component in *neutrino detectors for tracking these elusive particles.

What You Will See:

Upon activating the experience, participants will see visualizations inspired by neutrino particles and their quantum behaviors dynamically floating in, around, and above the sculpture. Initially, you will encounter a *probability cloud, symbolizing the neutrinos’ state of *superposition. Tapping the screen triggers a collapse of the *wave function, marking the moment a particle is detected or measured. Each ‘collapse’ produces a particle animation and places a red vibrating dot in the room, symbolizing the participation of each individual in the wave function collapse.

How to Interact

Set your phone to lock orientation via the auto-rotate or rotate lock icon.
Scan the QR code below.
Point your mobile device toward the disk image at the base of the sculpture, holding it steady for a few seconds to activate tracking.
Move your phone slowly to observe the images generating live in 3D space.
Tap the screen to collapse the neutrino cloud into a red vibrating dot, representing the measured particle, to record your participation.

What’s next?

Now that we have created a platform for creating AR experiences, I plan to design several AR wall pieces that will be presented in conjunction with the sculpture. For this phase I will continue conversations with Fermilab physicists, Kirsty Duffy, Grace Cummings, Luis Mendoza and Innes E. Bigaran to inform the next series of works.

(I=)UNIVERSE: An intercultural sci-art exploration of the universe

February 22, 2020 4 21st Century Resources, Arts, Festival, science, STEAM, STEM, technology

(I=)UNIVERSE is a STEMarts Lab production in collaboration with Santa Fe Institute’s InterPlanetary Festival, Milagro Middle School and multiple departments at Santa Fe Public Schools, including Art, Science, Technology, and Native American Student Services. Together they coordinated an intensive, hands-on workshop that included digital technology, particle physics, and Native-Western science connections. Experts in all of these fields served as contributing scientists, artists, and storytellers throughout the project. The project included a 2-week workshop with 70 students led by an interdisciplinary team: STEMarts founder/artist, Agnes chavez, Milagro art teachers, Megan Avina and Grace Mayer, Dr. Nicole Lloyd-Ronning, LANL astrophysicist, Shane Wood, QuarkNet staff/ particle physics instructor, Steve Tamayo, Lakota artist/cultural specialist, as well as virtual visits from Geneva with Dr. Steven Goldfarb, CERN physicist and from Austria with Tagtool founder/ artist, Markus Dorninger.

(I=)UNIVERSE culminates=s with the following student performances, Due to COVID the Santa Fe Institute’s InterPlanetary Festival was cancelled.

• Innovation EXPO: Full STEAM ahead! A re-imagined and innovative take on the traditional school science fair. Student live painting performance at the Santa Fe Convention Center. February 13, 2020, 5:30pm-7:30pm.

STEMarts (x)change: Lisbon to New Mexico

January 12, 2020 15 21st Century Resources, Arts, Lisbon, science, STEAM, technology

POSTPONED DUE TO COVID

American Corner@University of Lisbon Faculty of Letters (FLUL). I will be working with Humanities students from the ‘Cultural Creative’ program to design a community outreach project based on a relevant social topic. The 2-month project will culminate with a sci-art projection installation at the American Corner space that will raise awareness to the social topic explored and outline next steps for implementing the community project. Learn more.

SAP Lab: Artist residency and collaboration

January 12, 2020 39 Arts, Festival, Philosophy, science, STEAM, technology

Agnes will be starting an artist residency in 2022 at the SAP Lab in Lisbon, Portugal, collaborating with Catarina Pombo Nabais, philosopher and founder of the SAP Lab, ‘an innovative, experimental and interdisciplinary laboratory within the Center for the Philosophy of Science of the University of Lisbon (CFCUL). Their mission is for philosophy to deeply intertwine with science and art. It aims at integrating the work of scientists and artists with the conceptual analysis which philosophy is prepared to provide.’ Visit their website for more. Catarina will be facilitating research and discussions from diverse interdisciplinary and intercultural voices and they are working on several projects to explore at the intersection of ecology, art and philosophy.

Fluidic Data@CERN Data Center

November 8, 2019 5 Arts, science

The Fluidic Data team presented the results of the inter-departmental collaboration on November 2019 at the 24th International Conference on Computing High Energy and Nuclear Physics in a presentation called Fluidic Data: When Art Meets CERN, Data Flows. The speaker was Julien LeDuc, IT specialist at the CERN Data Center. Julien was the lead technology designer for the installation and particularly for data integration and the pump system (pictured here in early stages of design) which visualizes data through colored water segments and air pockets. See gallery.

Building Capacity for STEAM: Americorps Project expands into 2017

December 31, 2016 35 21st Century Resources, Arts, particle physics, science, STEAM, STEM, technology

Two years ago I joined Andrea Polli and the Social Media Workgroup (SMW) as an Americorps VISTA. “Did you know that President Kennedy introduced the idea of VISTA to Congress in 1963? Or that many of the best-known anti-poverty programs, including Head Start and Credit Unions, were expanded by VISTA members? VISTA has been on the forefront of ending poverty in America for 50 years.” Check out the Americorps website to read more about this important program.

In 2014, SMW received its first Americorps/VISTA grant to launch the STEAM NM initiative: Building Capacity for STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math and the Arts) Education in New Mexico. Now renewed and expanded for its third year with VISTA, our STEAM NM core group includes SMW along with five partners: UNM STEM Collaborative, The School of Architecture + Planning and COSMIAC; the CNM Fuse Makerspace, and The PASEO/STEMarts in Taos. My role as the Taos VISTA is to innovate and network STEAM initiatives in Northern New Mexico. It has been an exciting year that has led to new local and global partnerships to expand youth opportunities in our communities. Read more about it on the Social Media Workgroup website and stay tuned for 2017 programming.

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Launch of STEAM Innovation Lab at Local Taos School

October 9, 2016 38 21st Century Resources, Arts, particle physics, science

We are excited to announce that the launch of a STEAM Innovation Lab at the Taos Integrated School of the Arts in Taos, New Mexico is underway. STEMarts Lab founder, Agnes Chavez, is working with Richard Greywolf and Megan Avina Bowers to design a STEAM Lab that will launch TISA students and teachers into the 21st century.

The Lab will be based on the STEMarts Lab model developed in 2009 and which has been implemented through multiple platforms, from new media art festivals such as ISEA2012 Machine Wilderness and The Paseo, to national and international science events, such as the Los Alamos STEM Challenge and the ATLAS@CERN Projecting Particles project.

For the past three years TISA has participated in the STEMarts Lab youth program@The Paseo Youth program where students have gotten a taste of this unique STEAM approach. They experience cutting edge technologies and science through the lens of new media artists, and collaborate with the artist to create participatory art for Taos’ exciting new festival, The Paseo. In 2015, NY based artist, CHiKA, engaged students in a video mapping marathon that was part of the festival and this year students worked with The Illuminator, an art collective that works with light projections as a means of political expression, environmental transformation, and public discourse. We will integrate an ongoing series of Projecting Particles workshops in collaboration with ATLAS@CERN that will keep students abreast of the latest discoveries in particle physics, and through art, better understand how these discoveries expand our understanding of who we are and our place in the universe.

We have partnered with TWIRL to integrate their exciting STEAM activities, and are looking forward to collaborating with other emerging Maker spaces and activities to create a community-focused laboratory for exploration. The STEAM Innovation Lab at TISA will continue to offer these unique interdisciplinary collaborations but will also provide teachers with year long opportunities to learn about and integrate cutting edge technologies into their own curriculum topics.

Some unique features of the Lab include, A 21st Century Materials and Resource Library, a multi-functional space that allows for multiple intelligence exploration, and a VR biofeedback room that focuses on social emotional intelligence. The TISA STEAM Lab will have a strong emphasis on science concepts, creativity and innovation, personal reflection and growth, and social practice as the foundation to all technological explorations. For more information contact learn@sube.com.

steam_skills-chart_2017

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Origination Point Installation at The Harwood Museum

April 28, 2016 19 Arts, exhibits, particle physics, science, technology

Current exhibit

February 12- May 1, 2016

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.

As part of Agnes Chavez’s Projecting Particles series and inspired by her research stay at ATLAS@CERN in Geneva Switzerland, this work explores new concepts about space, 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.

Agnes Chavez is a new media artist based in Taos, New Mexico. Inspired by particle physics, nature and technology, Chavez experiments with data visualization, sound and projection art to create participatory environments.

Marcel Schwittlick is a visual artist living in Berlin, Germany examining new possibilities of modern technology. He is interested in digital culture and its inclinations on society and is working in strong connection to various fields in the arts, forging a connection between physical and digital media.

Robert Schirmer is a sound designer and musician living in Berlin,Germany. His approach to sound and music is driven by improvisation and reduction. He’s often using field recordings and home-grown foley recordings.

Events

R&D collaborations

Augmented Reality experiments

Synopsis

What’s next?