Stellar Entangelment – VR Video

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Stellar Entangelment – VR Video

Author: Jan Swierkowski – Universidade Católica Portuguesa, Portugal, Portugal

The connections between particles in the Universe do not differ from the connections between us. Is it possible, however, that some of us are contaminated with the same elements that constituted past civilizations? In the end, as astronomers say, each of us carries a souvenir of cosmic catastrophes – supernova explosions. If so, is the fact that we are built of the same matter as the fiery nuclei of stars allows us to be called “children of stars” or is there something more needed? “Stellar Entanglement” (2019) is a VR project resulting from the merger of two galaxies – the art and science group Instytut B61 and the directing duo The Kissinger Twins.

The effect of the symbiotic cooperation of artists is a lot more than just a VR experience dealing with the issue of cosmic quantum entanglement. The project, based on the motifs of the immersive spectacle directed by Jan Swierkowski, tells the story of a mysterious scientific institute trying to secure the immortality of a civilization imprisoned on a doomed planet in a remote region of our Galaxy. However, its main focus is the search of the place of the Universe inside the Humans.

The VR film can be presented along with one of the figurative installations presented in the immersive performance depicting the magnitude and infinity of the Universe. The giant “Sand Machine” by sculptor Dominik Smuzny is used by the Institute B61 in order to calculate the IT (Infinite Things). Each of the more than one billion grains of sand constituting its base represents one of the Stars of the Milky Way. The machine itself contains still at most one-hundredth of all stars in our Galaxy. However, there are over two billion galaxies in the Universe. Is it possible that we are alone?

The author has not yet submitted a copy of the full paper.

Presentation type: Visual presentation
Theme: Technology

Art & Science of the Invisible: Translating through metaphors

Author: Jan Swierkowski – Universidade Católica Portuguesa, Portugal

The author has observed that many artists that work at the intersection of art and contemporary physics experience problems to introduce in their creations the radically new knowledge (Petrie, Oshlag, 1993) of quantum theory or theory of relativity, mainly due to the uncanny nature of “the invisible”. The basic view that the author shares is that interactive metaphors (Black, 1962) allow for instant understanding of the unknown in various symbolic systems at the same time, such as among others words, music, painting, photography, sculpture, architecture, and dance (Limont, 2004). Therefore the goal of this presentation is to propose how practitioners in the field of art and science can systematically conceptualize and create representations of contemporary scientific phenomena that can’t be explored through direct experience using different theories of metaphor (Black, 1962), (Lakoff, Johnson 1980), (Fauconnier, Turner 2002), (Brandt, Brandt 2005), (Forceville, Urios-Aparisi, 2009) and intersemiotic translation (Jakobson, 1959), (Eco 2001). The author created an experimental methodology of creation of novel multimodal metaphors in a controlled process of collaboration between artists and scientists. The resulting artworks are large scale immersive performances, video art and interactive digital stories of an art and science group Instytut B61 (http://bit.ly/Instytutb61). Among many presentations the group has created a mobile exhibition about Special Theory of Relativity in a cargo train from Tallinn to Lisbon (http://bit.ly/cosmicunderground), an immersive performance in a postcolonial hospital in Panjim, Goa (http://bit.ly/panjimb61 p74-93) and participated in the celebrations of the European Capital of Culture in WrocÅ‚aw, Poland (http://bit.ly/wroclawb61). The most recent work includes a cinematic VR experience “Stellar entanglement” (2019) (http://bit.ly/stellardemo) and a pop-up science centre “Interstellar Sugar Center” in an antique sugar factory in Ponta Delgada, Portugal described by the Forbes as “euphoric and mind-bending, with a touch of Clockwork Orange.”(http://bit.ly/forbesreview). The author will discuss the methodology and practical examples.

The author has not yet submitted a copy of the full paper.

Presentation type: Visual presentation
Theme: Technology

Multimodal metaphors in science communication

Author: Jan Swierkowski – Universidade Católica Portuguesa, Portugal

In the era of visual culture the scientific world described by equations is incomprehensible for most of the society because it lacks qualitative representation of its main ideas. There is a need of a multimodal language for communicating science.

The results of research and analysis show that when scientists solve complicated problems in order to understand the unknown they often use heuristics methods that include metaphors (Miller, 2000). The theoretical background of this fact lays in sciences of cognition and the idea that the way we perceive the Universe has a largely metaphorical character. The essence of ‘a metaphor’ is to understand and experience one thing in the terms of the other (Lakoff, Johnson 1980). Moreover when people conceptualize their experience, especially for new phenomena that has never been observed and cannot be understood otherwise, they usually rely on metaphors (Dudzikowa, Czerepaniak-Walczak, 2009).

Following this reasoning I suggest that in the Digital Era in which ‘digital, electronic, and visual expressions’ became a form of literacy (Gentry, McAdams, 2013), multimodal metaphors ‘whose target and source are each represented exclusively or predominantly in different modes’ (i.e. written or spoken language, visuals, sound, music etc.) (Forceville 2009) can form basis of new scientific stories and serve as modern translations from scientific to layman language.

I try to understand how these multimodal metaphors can be methodologicaly created/curated with the use of conceptual blending theory (Turner, Fauconnier, 2002) and presented as art, performance or Digital Storytelling based on the work of an interdisciplinary experimental group ‘Institute B61’ that I established in 2009. Since then B61 has been conducting intensive art and science experimental research that has resulted in the formulation of over 50 multimodal metaphors of scientific phenomena, most of them presented as spectacular pop-up activities to more than 20,000 volunteers from 5 countries.

The author has not yet submitted a copy of the full paper.

Presentation type: Individual paper
Theme: Stories
Area of interest: Applying science communication research to practice

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