An academic talk and the subsequent discussion is a public display of an otherwise mostly closed-door affair, and it exposes the complex nature of the creation of knowledge. Projections is a series of artworks aiming to give visual representation to academic talks, mostly on the topics of physics and philosophy of physics. In a way, each Projection is a field report of my experience of a talk, which itself is a multidimensional beast existing in a space that exceeds the four-dimensional confines of a conference room. The talk is diffracted by my own sensibilities and projected onto the paper in real time. Some pieces are the projections of the abstract conceptual world of our models of reality and their symbolic representations: String, Loop, Set; Zero, Asymptotic, Infinity; State, Superposition, Entanglement. Others capture the emotional and the social dimensions of the talk: Enthusiasm, Self-doubt, Bravado; Camaraderie, Conflict, Agreement; Confusion, Insight, Understanding. Most of the Projections, however, are half-profiles: Confinement, Freedom, Exclusion; Interaction, Interference, Perturbation; Uncertainty, Confidence, Safety. I’ve held two artist residencies as part of this project, one at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Canada and the other at the Center for Philosophy and History of Science at Boston University. Artwork made during the residency at the Perimeter Institute is on permanent display at the institute and was featured in the Fall 2018 edition of Inside Perimeter.
