Artist Statement

Lightcurve  is an “infrared arc”. Lightbridge / machine study no. 4′ : works by Chris Henschke created during the Australian Synchrotron Synapse Residency; exhibited at the UNSW College of Fine Arts’ Kudos Gallery as part of ISEA2013.

The work shown is part of Chris Henschke’s ongoing art / physics collaborations with researchers at the Australian Synchrotron. Research contribution: ‘Lightbridge’ uniquely explores the boundaries between the macroscopic and quantum domains, and the relationship between observer and observed. It combines electronic and optical media to investigate the limitations of human perception, and the relationships between our unaided perception and the complexities of perception enhancing technologies such as particle accelerators. Research significance: ‘Lightbridge’ was developed during Chris Henschke’s Australia Council for the Arts ‘Synapse’ residency at the Australian Synchrotron The exhibition was presented by the UNSW College of Fine Arts and ISEA 2013, 19th International Symposium of Electronic Art, a world renowned bi-annual international event showcasing contemporary electronic art. It was opened by the Dean of COFA, Ross Harley, and Dr. Mark Boland, Senior Scientist at the Australian Synchrotron. The show was well attended, and was reviewed by ‘Realtime’ arts magazine – an article is to be found here: http://www.realtimearts.net/feature/ISEA2013/11188
https://henschke2010.anat.org.au   Source: https://researchrepository.rmit.edu.au/esploro/outputs/other/Lightbridge/9921859371601341

• Chris Henschke is a practicing artist and lecturer in Media & Communication at RMIT University, who has been working with digital media since the late Twentieth Century. His main area of practice is in collaborative art / science experiments. He has worked with Australian Synchrotron since 2005, through a variety of official and unofficial art residencies, commissions, exhibitions, and curatorial projects. His ongoing relationships with synchrotron scientists have allowed him to take several visits to the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, and organise the Colliding Ideas – art, society and physics symposium in July 2012, which was a satellite event of the 36th International Conference of High Energy Physics where the discovery of the Higgs Boson was announced. Currently he is a PhD candidate at Monash University, where he is undertaking practice-led research into methodological and epistemological relationships between theory and practice within and across the disciplines of media art and particle physics. https://henschke2010.anat.org.au