Russell A. Beard

Russell A. Beard | MFA Art Space & Nature

With a background in earth science, landscape design and documentary storytelling Russell Beard, (MFA Art Space &Nature) presents TOWARDS THE ESSENCE OF MATTER,  a body of work that is the result of an on-going exploration at the intersection of phenomenological philosophy, dark ecology, and quantum mechanics.

With a sculptural practice that incorporates etching, print making and video installation, Beard attempts to communicate truthfully what is not immediately perceptible at our human spatio–temporal scale.

By combining what we know to be true about the structure of space and time with an interest in how language and stories are central to our identity and shared sense of place, the artist unites our current theories about the fundamental nature of things, with our lived experience of the world.

Beards final project for the ECA Degree Show 2018 is the latest in a series of artistic investigations into various aspects our vibrant materiality – and an attempt at not simply representing the nature of reality at the finest granular scale but (as with the so called “redox reaction” of electron transfer central to the etching process or with illuminating images ‘painted’ with photons, it is an engagement with materiality at the quantum level.

 

The first of three works is a re-presentation of the so called standard model – a kind of pictographic periodic table of each of the seventeen fundamental quantum particles that (as far as we know) make up everything of substance in our universe (aside from gravity and dark matter)
The set of lacquered light-boxes reference Max plank’s “black box” thought experiment which gave rise to the first quantum theory that lead Albert Einstein to go on to write the first quantum mechanical equations that proved the strange wave-particle duality of light.
Inspired by old scientific ‘magic lantern’ slides The boxes display a series of Pictographs – (pictures which resemble what they signify) created by speaking the names of the particles into a resonating chamber which in turn translated the sound via a mirrored membrane, oscillating a laser beam of photons into a signature - unique to each particle name. These so called lisajous curves were then photographed with a long exposure and transferred onto glass plates – in a sense creating a new logographical system of writing for that which is invisible – “It is in language alone that like knows like” (Adorno 1975) One also remembers the wonderful ‘Landmarks’ by Robert Mcfarlane – the lyrical and eloquent love letter to language in which he described how when we loose the words to describe something we often loose the ability to perceive it . “words act as compasses; place-speech serves literally to en-chant the land - to sing it back into being and to sing ones being back into it” (Macfarlane 2015)

The second piece is based on a Victorian animation device known as a Praxinoscope or “action viewer”. It was a invented in France around the time that Max Plank and Albert Einstein first theorised that light was made up of fundamental particles or ‘Photons’ that “fall on us like a gentle hail shower” (Rovelli 2016) ushering in a new paradigm of particle physics known as Quantum Field Theory
The Praxinoscope was the successor to the zoetrope but instead of a strip of images held inside a vertical drum the pictures are on a horizontal plane similar to records on which are printed images instead of music. Beard has built this device using wood from various pieces of Victorian antique furniture and created three interchangeable image plates.
Each plate corresponds to a different fundamental quantum particle – (Strange Quark, Higgs Boson, and W Boson) and comprises a series of images each one etched directly into the metal and arranged in a spiral.
Each image can be read as a Phonogram. Unlike logograms (used by quarter of the worlds population) - these don’t have word meanings but represent sounds - (as in phonetic or orthographical writing like Korean Hangul) - when phonograms are combined they create multi syllabic meaning and phrases.
When the praxinoscope is spun the phonograms appear in the mirrors to join into one animated pictograph which resembles, signifies and represents a quantum field.
This project continues In the tradition of the pioneering photographers such as Eadweard Muybridge who saw himself as an explorer using art and photography “in the spirit of scientific enquiry” using his ‘Zoopraxiscope’ he was credited with creating the first moving images to access a keener understanding of aspects of reality beyond the threshold of human perception.

The images etched into zinc plates are representations of fundamental particles. Each plate corresponds to a different particle and starts with an atomic (‘Indivisible’) point then splitting into orbital-like – lisajous curves before returning to the single point. Divided into twelve segments each plate references clock time - but instead of numbers around the periphery the characters emerge from the centre in a spiral - pointing to the scientific truth that Time is an emergent property from quantum mechanics not some Newtonian “cosmic cloak” under which we all sit (Rovelli 2016)
By manifesting works of art, or representing advancements in scientific or mathematical discoveries we constantly recreate our understanding of the world. But like our understanding of ecology – it’s a dynamical moving tapestry "a patchwork quilt of living things, changing continually through time and space, responding to an unceasing barrage of perturbations. The stitches in that quilt never hold for long" (Worster 1989)”… “radical change in our physical worldview is not just due to the invention of a mathematical formalism or to new empirical information coming from novel experiments, but it also implies a thorough modification of the fundamental concepts with which we interpret the world of our experience”. (Dorato 2016)

Video, glass, birch plywood, 5.1 surround-sound speakers
35 x 35cm
QUANTUM CAVE is an immersive video installation which could be read as a visual timeline of the discoveries of subatomic particles presented as an abstract film projected at the end of a blacked out tunnel in to which the viewer is invited to peer.
The impression of looking into a cave is enhanced by unsettling low frequency echoes and the sound of a crackling fire in a clear reference to ‘Plato’s Cave’.
Beginning with a single point of light of the ancient Greek atomistic world view - Beard “en-chants” the particles into being (Abram 2012) – The howling cavernous noises are ultra high-speed recordings of the names of the seventeen fundamental particles being spoken in the order in which they were identified. Using the words to split the atomic point of light into different orbits “Strange Quarks” and “Higgs Bosons” and so on, the sound resonates a chamber vibrating a mirrored membrane that oscillates a beam of photons resulting in a complex harmonic motion that is recorded in series of ‘lisajous’ curves using a high speed camera
New orbitals emerge from the central atomic points, layering one on top of the other, and appearing as a swarm of interacting particle fields building in complexity as a visual timeline that stretches from late 19^th century until 2012 and the discovery of the Higgs Boson particle.
In a sense we are calling back into the cave to Lucretius and the natural philosophers of ancient Greece telling them of quarks and electrons and yet the viewer is aware of their own shadow on the glass wall – a reminder that in a sense we are still in the cave - straining to hear the echoes of our future-selves calling back to us perhaps sharing their secrets of ‘dark matter’ and maybe even the quantum-granular nature of space itself.