Dr Libby Heaney – Noticer: Some notes

Black holes:

Overview: a black hole is a region of spacetime from which gravity prevents anything, including light, from escaping.

Formation: When dying stars collapse, (i.e. when they run out of fuel and the radiation pressure of the nuclear reactions no longer balances the gravitational force) they can end up in one of a few states. Blackholes are formed when the heaviest types of stars collapse. BH grow bigger by absorbing mass from their surroundings.

History: Idea first put froward by John Michell in 1783, but idea largely ignored because scientists not sure how a massless wave like light could be affected by gravity.

Theory: Predicted by Karl Schwarzschild using in Einstein’s theory of general relativity. All mass bends the space around them. The gravity we feel on earth is due to the fact it curves space a little. With blackholes this occurs to such an extent that it is wrapped around itself and even light cannot escape. Imagine an endless spiral. You would need more energy than there is in the universe to pull you out (i.e. you would need to travel faster than the speed of light which is impossible). In a BH mass collapses to a point – zero dimensions – known as a singularity – no atoms, no particles we would recognize.

The theory shows that the boundary of the region from which no escape is possible is called the event horizon.

Laws of physics of blackholes largely unknown as we need a theory that reconciles general relativity with quantum physics, so called ‘Theory of everything’. An area of active research – string theory/quantum gravity.

Blackholes can evaporate as was shown by Stephen Hawking.

Basically, general relativity posits that space and time are not absolute properties of the universe but rather they depend on the relative motion of an observer.

A stationary external observer would therefore witness time stop for an object that crosses the event horizon. From the point of view of an infallen observer time continues. Hence known as frozen stars as we observe a frozen surface.

Detection: Invisible interior, but their presence can be inferred by the behaviour of other mass and by the passage of light through space. Matter falling into a black hole gets heated by friction and form some of the brightest objects in the universe. There is a black hole 4.3 times bigger than the sun at the centre of our galaxy, the milky way.

Only three independent physical properties are observable from outside a blackhole: mass charge and angular momentum.

Magnetism:

Overview: Magnetism is the force exerted by magnets on other magnetic material.

Formation: – what makes something magnetic? Rotating/moving charged particles. Permanent and non-permanent magnetic material

History: Evidence for first use of magnetic materials 10000BC! Orsted first link between electricity and magnetism. Maxwell’s equations unifying theory for the fundamental force of electromagnetism.

Theory: Maxwell equations, predicted speed of light, but not the quantum effects of waves. Some people thought that the magnetic force was transferred via the ether, which has since been proven not to exist.

Detection: school – iron filings. Charges.

Unusual behaviour: Magnetic monopoles – do they exist? Quantum magnetism. Different types of magnetism.

Applications: birds use magneto receptors to navigate. Electromagnets. Electricity generation. Superconducting magnets. Levitation. Used at LCH CERN.

Summer School day 1, Monday 28 July 2014

10.15: Coffee

10.30: Introduction to Tate Learning and Summer School Research Project by Alice Walton

10.45: Who are we and what have we noticed…
This introduction acknowledges us all as experts/non experts, teachers and learners in the room – non hierarchical.

Work in pairs
Tell each other who you are
What have you noticed in the room?
Tell the rest of the group about your partner and what they noticed
Write it on the board as you speak

11.15: Summer School introduction by Natasha Kidd

Anticipating Accessories kits by Lucy Orta
These wearable artworks are related to Orta’s longstanding interest in communication and participation. Each accessory is also a kit containing different objects that symbolize a state of emergency: shortages of water or food, loss of love or affection, pollution or environmental disasters.

Taking Orta’s work as a metaphor, we are offering up a way of working with uncertainty but in a safe and certain way. Come with us…

Our methodology:
“When you start asking things, you initiate an endless process, you open up a can of worms…”
We outline a little bit about our thinking. Also see Appendix 1

The learning resource as the subject: Following on from designing the Baldessari and Boetti resources, we have become interested in inviting teachers / students in to the dialogue / research. As part of that we have established a methodology for Summer School 2014.

The live resource as the method: This week is a live resource, which is a method for harnessing the expertise of everyone involved: teachers, scientists, artists, architecture students, fine art graduates, curators, filmmakers. It is unfixed, generative, evolving, not known. We will use the grant projector / visualiser to project any images, texts and tell the story of Summer School. We want to avoid a sense of projecting “fixed knowledge” and embrace the liveness of the week.

Noticing as the concept: We will talk about noticing as a current, laying the image of the eyes live on the grant projector. We openly talk about our thinking gathering pace. Thoughts attract other thoughts and references and objects.

Blog as a record: This gathering, snowball of information has enabled us to make transparent our thinking through the planning of Summer School. And to help us begin to find our way in, we printed it. The blog has become our can of worms …

11.30: Noticing with all the Senses
Pat Thomson
Why did you choose to post what you did…

Pat unpicks the posts, using the grant projector / visualizer as method of slowing down the way a blog is experienced – digital to analogue.

12.00: Magnetism
Dr. Libby Heaney

We are particularly interested in considering noticing as having the equivalent current to magnetism. As non-experts we are curious to know more and to consider this possibility.

Dr. Heaney gives a Skype talk from New York on the formation, theory, history and application of magnetism and black holes.

12.50: A Case for blackboards
In the talk Thinking through Making Tim Ingold suggests that the artifact can’t be understood as an idea simply projected on to a material.

>excerpt from 6’:52”- 8’.21” Thinking Through Making

“When we use PowerPoint we project images on the screen; PowerPoint is the epitome of the logic of projection, which I am arguing against. The reason why I like black boards is that the black board is the epitome of the process of creativity that I am arguing for. You stand at the black board and you scrape a line. Then your movement, your awareness, the trace of the materials are all bound up in that one performance and what you see is the outcome of that performance. That’s why I like blackboards”.

12.55: P-A-U-S-E
Write the word ‘Pause’ on the visualiser.

The group has been instructed that the first person to notice the word Pause should pass it on. On receiving the instruction, each person finishes what they are doing and finds someone to tell what they have noticed on the table, in the room, in our conversations so far and the talks. This is recorded on the blackboard.

2.00: Noticer
We introduce the Noticer as an object.

The aim is to construct/consider/make a noticer: An object that gathers information, things, objects and ideas to it.
We have begun to notice objects that draw information to them
e.g. the planter seat, image of text message

Make a list as a group. What objects gather people to them?

2.20: Alexander Brodsky & Ilya Utkin
These artists take architectural, literary and visual sources and construct and depict absurd proposals for new constructions/cities. They combine architecture with fine art.

We gather in this display to consider our task. From here,we go into the collection and collect/collate visual sources/ideas about objects that attract information, ideas, people and things to them. Working in groups of 4 we draw directly from the collection/the building as a starting point.

4.10:The pitch
Back in the Clore Studio we give 4 presentations to the student architects and graduate artists on what we have found and why it is relevant.

We use the visualiser, cameras, black boards. The architects / students take notes. Working overnight, they will use these presentations to construct a series of proposals for objects that function in an equivalent way. They will consider how the noticer will include all 4 elements presented to them and think about a modular or cooperative system for drawing these elements together. These maybe impossible structures that need consideration or adaptation in day two.

4.50: S-T-O-P
The word ‘Stop’ is written on the visualiser.

The group has been instructed that the first person to notice the word Stop should pass it on. On receiving the instruction, each person finishes what they are doing and finds someone to tell about a conversation or word from the day that they can recall.

(Appendix 1) Methodology

Method of sharing information
We will use a visualiser to project texts, drawings printouts (sourced).
We will print everything from the blog and stack it as a starting point. This will enable us to reach for things and project them quickly and live. Avoiding a fixed presentation.

During the week when something is found, used and projected from a book or text we will photograph it or photocopy it to add to the stack.

Method of taking notes
The blackboard becomes a place where information about the speakers, questions that are raised and information that is offered is noted.

Method of reflecting
A Pause or a Stop will be indicated by Jo or Tash writing on of those words on the visualiser. The first person to notice this will pass on the word to the others. The group will down tools and recall and record a conversation that they have “noticed” This should be written on the black board and photographed, prompting a discussion.

Method of learning
We acknowledge all participants and contributors as experts/non experts, teachers and learners, without hierarchy.