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Bridging Cosmology and Art
Our art and science project uses interactive sound sculptures to communicate complex cosmological concepts.
With these sculptures an audiences can engauge with the noise of the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR) through the audio experience similar to the one through the radio receiver, but in microwave domain, where the CMBR dominates, allowing listening of the oldest light 13.7 bilion years old. This radiation is rendered to the acoustic signal which is resonating through these sculptures as an analogy to the first sound waves in the universe, which expanded and resonated through primordial plasma. These pressure waves are baryonic acoustic oscillations (BAO). These sculptures are simple and tactile engaging method which offers a direct way to grasp the fundamentals of cosmic evolution, expansion, origin, the large scale structure formation, time travel back to the first light, concepts of distinguishing between the noise and the signal...
Two brothers, one a sculptor (Prof. Ivan Bon) and the other an astrophysicist (Dr. Edi Bon), have joined forces for a distinctive art and science collaboration.
Together, we delve into the mysteries of the expanding universe, focusing on relics of cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR) through which the echoes of the first acoustic waves in the universe propagated as density acoustic waves of the primordial plasma.
We've crafted interactive sound sculptures resembling horn shapes, which function as horn antennas receiving CMBR signals. Through antenna, CMBR is received and rendered into sound, which is emitted through sculptures (resonator and horn act as a passive amplifier with sound modulation that amplifies standing waves along their shape) acoustically modify the noise of the early universe.
These sculptures functions as an interface that receives electromagnetic signals from the sky (background noise) and converts them into the audible domain. The sound waves produced by the sculpture represent an analogy to the first sound waves in the Universe - baryon acoustic oscillations (BAO) which propagated through the primordial baryon–photon plasma and whose imprint can still be observed across cosmic scales in the filamentary structure of the large-scale distribution of matter.
Modern cosmology relies heavily on our understanding of the CMBR. Historically, the epochal discovery by Penzias and Wilson began with literally “listening” to the noise detected by their horn antenna. The work is inspired by the original horn antenna used for the discovery of the CMBR.
Today, as current tensions in cosmology test the limits of the standard cosmological model, the question of distinguishing signal from noise becomes increasingly important. Noise is not merely a problem of uncertainty, but also an epistemological challenge that confronts the limits of our knowledge.
The project explores new ways of communicating cosmology and its methods of inquiry, showing how knowledge can emerge from noise and making abstract phenomena such as primordial fluctuations accessible through direct sensory experience.
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