Sensing The Unseeable: how scientific discovery shapes who we are

With Martina Cavalot and Wassim Z. Alsindi of 0xSalon
IRL ⌂ Saturday 27 January – 16-18h – Galerie Im Turm, Frankfurter Tor 1, 10243.
Free entry and open to all.

This Vorspiel-affiliated event is part of the exhibition series Schwindel, of which the latest iteration Dort, wo das Nichts ist presents works by Yen Chun Lin and Tanja Nis-Hansen.

How does science represent the world? And what does the sky teach us about ourselves? In this discursive group session, we will collectively probe the ways in which the scientific image - the world picture established by centuries of methodical and formalised discovery - shatters and recomposes the manifest image: how humankind conceives of itself. Looking at the history of our understanding of space, will enable us to take stock of the implications to knowledge carried over by the paradigms we choose to interpret reality.  

EXHIBITION TEXT:

“A radiant yellow-orange ring encircles profound darkness, the shadow of a black hole. This globally acclaimed image was released in April 2019, realised through the synchronised data processing of eight telescopes positioned around the Earth. A complex technical endeavour that made a thing that is nothing and a place where there is no thing perceivable.

Half a century earlier, another space photograph known as “Earthrise”, captured during the Apollo 8 mission in 1968, gained social significance. This depiction of the rising Earth, intricately marbled with pale veils and enveloped by darkness, mirrored the fragile planet as a global village and thus motivated environmental awareness and activism.

What could be contemporary projections resulting from the documentation of a black hole? Which worlds emerge through this (technical) translation of nothingness into image and sound?”