Archives for posts with tag: magnetotactic bacteria

A Stone Sky

December 12, 2023 //

‘A stone sky rotated above our heads’ – Italo Calvino, Cosmicomics

The culmination of two years work – A STONE SKY duo exhibition with Julie F Hill opened at Thames-side Studios Gallery – Reimagining the idea of an observatory – the exhibition proposes a cavernous realm of real and speculative possibilities that arise from beyond the limits of human perception. Engaging with the extended sensory range offered by technologies such as orbiting space telescopes through to the ability of birds to ‘see’ the Earth’s magnetic field, the artists’ reveal intimate connections between earth and space.

Installation shot by Ben Deakin Photography.

Susan Eyre seeks to navigate a path across time from the first human encounter with the magical qualities of the lodestone to current understanding of the interaction of the magnetic field with terrestrial life. Her works respond to the architecture, instruments and materials, found at a magnetic observatory while scientific objectives are expanded to include natural navigation techniques and extra-sensory methods used by the non-human realm, to form the basis of speculation as to the ability for humans to perceive the Earth’s magnetic field. Installation, sculpture and moving image works include a reimagined observation hut operating as a sensory hub with video screens suggesting portals into a web of neural pathways; an obelisk of layered recycled paper echoing Earth’s geological and magnetic history secreted in sedimentary strata of rock and a digital video work activated in real time by the passage of cosmic rays through a scintillator detector.

Images by Ben Deakin Photography

Julie F Hill explores the entwined darknesses of earth and cosmos. Crystalline and mineral substances from the deep earth fuse with astronomical data to suggest the deep-earth as an instrument for coming to know the cosmos. Crystalline and mineral substances formed in the continuum of deep earth and deep space allow us to peer back into cosmic time, both through the technologies created with them and the geological record they hold. Whilst darkness often indicates uncertainty and lack of knowledge, Hill asserts that it’s through darkness when we can be most perceptive to the interconnectedness between earth and cosmos. Through it we are able to extend our kinship with the inorganic and expand consciousness of what constitutes nature. Works include a large-scale sculptural print installation made from James Webb Space Telescope data that is reworked into a cavernous space, providing an experience of intimate immensity alongside more smaller sculptural and photographic works.

Images by Ben Deakin Photography

We both had ambitious large scale works to install and were grateful for the help we received from our partners (both Kevins), friends and technicians. Trevor Neale was magnificent in constructing The Absolute Hut. Anne Krinsky patiently helped apply double sided tape to the roof structure ready for the Suminagashi paper tiles and Caroline AreskogJones energetically painted the hut white and neatly edged the two way projection window. I was thrilled that, as a result of a wet few weeks, moss had started to grow on the wooden boards of the north facing wall in time for installation.

A big thank you to everyone that made it to the opening night, we were super chuffed with the positive responses.

At the private view Julie’s large scale print installation was activated by a vocal performance conjuring abyssal voices of deep, cosmic time, performed and devised with Eleanor Westbrook whose voice produces incredible hauntingly beautiful sound.

I was particularly excited to share The Breath of Stars, digital video work activated in real time by the passage of cosmic rays through a scintillator detector. After two years in development it was so exciting to watch the random starbursts appear in real time as witness to the unseen activity of cosmic rays passing through the gallery.

The kaleidoscopic video images that appear for every particle recorded by the detector, are created from footage of cosmic ray trails filmed in a cloud chamber.

The interaction of cosmic rays with atmospheric electrical fields influences the unpredictability of the magnetosphere and this random activity can be witnessed by the sudden flurries and silent gaps of the live video imagery.

These subatomic visitors from outer space power across the universe with unimaginable energy, coming from the heart of exploding stars or the depths of black holes; some may come from phenomena yet to be discovered or even from other dimensions. Travelling at close to the speed of light cosmic rays spiral along magnetic field lines, strike the edge of the Earth’s atmosphere, break apart and shower down upon us. Some particles collide and silently interact with atoms and technology on Earth. Most cosmic rays heading for Earth are deflected by the planet’s magnetic field and without this protection life on Earth could not survive this bombardment of radioactive matter. The interaction of cosmic rays and the solar wind with atmospheric electrical fields combines to influence the unpredictability of Earth’s magnetosphere, impacting the functioning of GPS satellite technology and computer processors on which humans have come to rely in daily life.

My research trip to Hartland Magnetic Observatory in North Devon was a catalyst for this body of work centring around a north facing observation hut aligned with an obelisk as a fixed azimuth mark. I am very grateful to The British Geological Survey for allowing me access to the site and particularly to Tom Martyn who shared his knowledge and gave a fascinating tour of the observatory.

The Azimuth Obelisk (of sedimentary knowledge) is a reimagining of an obelisk erected at Hartland Magnetic Observatory in the late 1950’s near the site’s northern boundary. Viewed through the window in the north wall of The Observing Building (also known as the Absolute Hut) it acts as a permanent azimuth mark from which the drift of the magnetic north pole is monitored. Currently almost hidden by undergrowth, the observatory’s concrete azimuth mark has been replaced by a digital GPS position. Much as the Earth’s geological and magnetic history is secreted into the strata of sedimentary rock, this sculpture also expresses the passage of time through the layering of recycled paper prints and drawings whose history becomes embedded within the stacked layers.

The Absolute Hut (of action potential) operates as a sensory hub with video screens suggesting portals into a web of neural pathways where a range of actions and processes are running concurrently reflecting on the dynamics between the Earth’s geologic structure and navigation using the magnetic field.

The title refers to the way neurons send information electrochemically around the body. The signals they send are called action potentials which is a temporary shift from negative to positive within the cell caused by certain ions entering the cell. Action potentials can be triggered by an interaction with the magnetic field causing a reaction in the body.

The installation is conceived from a combination of features, impressions and functions of the observing building and instruments at Hartland Magnetic Observatory in North Devon and the observation huts built in the 18^th century at The Kings Observatory in Kew for meteorological and magnetic observations.

Topological contours of suminagashi marbling and plasma cut copper reflect the fluid motion of the Earth’s molten iron core and the pulsating alpha waves of the human brain when subjected to magnetic fields.

‘the internal skies have their own birds’ Italo Calvino Cosmicomics

The fascinating and perilous journeys made by migrating birds has been a natural wonder for centuries with the first records of this phenomena made more than 3,000 years ago. The innate knowledge of migratory birds is mentioned in Job and Jeremiah and the ancient Greek writers Homer, Hesiod and Aristotle noted their passage.

Job 39:26 Doth the hawk fly by thy wisdom and stretch her wings towards the south?

Wintering light two way video projection of migratory pink footed geese filmed at RSPB Snettisham on the North Norfolk coast.

Research has proven that birds and many other animals can use the earth’s magnetic field for navigation. There are two ways this happens. In birds there is a protein in the retina of the eye – (cryptochrome molecules) which trigger action potentials enabling them to visualise the magnetic field. In other animals and magnetotactic bacteria tiny crystals of magnetite respond to the field. This may also be true of humans as we do have these crystals in our brain cells.

Birds use three different compasses to navigate across the globe; the sun, the stars and the magnetic field.

Birds are also able to detect rapid movement such as individual flashes or flickering of a fluorescent light which humans see as a continuous light. Hawks which pursue other birds through dense forests at high speeds, follow the movement of their prey while avoiding branches and other obstacles. To humans travelling at this speed, the fleeing prey, branches and obstacles would just be a blur.

Degrees of Variation considers what it might be like to have the sensory powers of a bird where a protein in the eye is excited by polarised light making it possible to see the magnetic field and follow a visual navigatory cue in an accelerated world. The video imagines flight over water and through woods while being guided by the force of a magnetic field.

Calvino’s story The Stone Sky is wonderfully descriptive of the volatile geological structure of the Earth. This fluidity is what makes life on Earth possible. Only planets with fluid cores have magnetic fields. The geological interior generates a field that reaches into outer space offering a protective shield.

internal skies : external spheres video sequences within concentric circles mimic the geological structure of the Earth to explore the relationship between Earth’s magnetic field and various methods of navigation including via magnetoreception and celestial observation. Sequences include star trails around Polaris (the current north star), birds and bees that use the magnetic field for navigation, magnetotactic bacteria, magnetised iron filings, aerial views of the coastline around Hartland and early morning polarised light which excites the cryptochrome protein in a birds eye.

The Earth’s geomagnetic field is created by a combination of three separate fields and timescales. The main field is generated in the earth’s molten iron core. Observing the field gives clues to the planet’s deep interior which is inaccessible to direct observations. Changes are measured in the annual drifting of magnetic poles. Secondly electrical currents caused by solar weather and cosmic rays bouncing off the Earth’s main field charge the surrounding ionosphere causing fluctuations in the field. This field changes by the micro second as we orbit the sun. The Earth’s magnetic field also acts as a shield against most potentially harmful charged particles from outer space. Finally the residual magnetisation of the geology of the rocky mantle and crust, measured in deep geological time also offers clues to the geological history of Earth.

The understanding of the world surrounding us forms in the darkness of our skulls.

interference – a panel of 12 small video screens inside The Absolute Hut (of action potential), showing images of the human brain filmed by using polarizing filters to create pulsating birefringence colours, relate to the narrative pinned to the outside of the hut.

The narrative is a mix of fact and fiction based on a real experiment carried out at Caltech where scientists found Alpha waves in the human brain do respond to Earth’s magnetic field and other research suggesting that it could be possible for the magnetic field in one animal’s brain to transmit information to another animal’s brain by triggering action potentials creating the same thoughts and emotions.

Instruments of the Anemoi are a set of dodecagon tablets cast in Snowcrete, a non-magnetic cement, as used in a magnetic observatory. Suggestive of the pedestals that support various instruments used in monitoring the Earths’ magnetic field they also respond to an ancient anemoscope “table of the winds” carved in marble around eighteen hundred years ago and inscribed with the Greek and Latin names of classical winds on each of its twelve sides. Envisaged here as speculative objects, instruments and schematics wrought by the wind gods, the first emissaries of navigation and orientation.

One tablet holds a copper bowl with a ‘silver fish’ floating in water. The shape of the ‘silver fish’ is based on the oval shaped compass needle (illustrated in Breve Compendio de la Sphera de la arte Navegar by Martin Cortes 1551) and refers back to wafer thin fish shaped iron leaves used by 11th century Chinese geomancers.

Nails and iron filings on the second tablet reveal an embedded magnetic field recalling a legend that the discovery of the lodestone was made by a Greek shepherd who noticed the nails in his boots were attracted to the rock (magnetite) beneath his feet.

The third tablet is embedded with copper etched with images and names based on associations and attributes of the twelve Greek wind gods set in a traditional compass rose.

Domain of the Devil Valley Master uses industrial directional magnetic steel, sanded and etched to reveal the Goss texture of rolled iron silicon alloy crystals. The jigsaw pattern of magnetic domains give this material exceptional magnetic properties. The simple evocation of a spiral described in geologically informed polygons draws upon many references, from the shape of our own Milky Way Galaxy sculpted by vast cosmological magnetic fields and the spiralling molten dynamo generating Earth’s magnetic field, to the inner pathway of spiritual growth and the route to the symbolic omphalos (navel) at the centre of the world where the sky entrance and the underworld meet. The title of this work originates from an ancient Chinese manual on the skills of persuasion, The Book of the Devil Valley Master, containing the first known mention of a compass, known at the time as a south-pointer.

The exhibition closed with an afternoon event launching our publication which includes the essay Dark Nights and Signs of Unseen Things by Anjana Janardhan. There was also a live cloud chamber demonstration of mesmerising cosmic ray trails, artist tours and informal readings.

Publication available – DM via blog comments box for more details or visit Julie’s shop

Tags A Stone Sky, action potentials, alpha brainwaves, Anjana Janardhan, azimuth, Ben Deakin Photography, birefringence, Cloud Chamber, compass, copper, cosmic ray detector, cosmic rays, Cosmicomics, Degrees of Variation, directional magnetic steel, Domain of the Devil Valley Master, Eleanor Westbrook, geomancers, Hartland Magnetic Observatory, human brain, Instruments of the Anemoi, interference, internal skies : external spheres, Italo Calvino, Julie F. Hill, legend, lodestone, magnetic, magnetite, magnetoreception, magnetotactic bacteria, marbling, Martin Cortes, moss, obelisk, pink footed geese, polarised light, RSPB Snettisham, silver fish, snowcrete, spiral galaxy, suminagashi, table of the winds, Thames-side Studios Gallery, The Absolute Hut, The Absolute Hut (of action potential), The Azimuth Obelisk (of sedimentary knowledge), The breath of stars, Wintering Light

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lode stone

June 2, 2022 //

Lode – a way or path, a watercourse, a vein of metallic ore.

A lodestone is a naturally occurring magnet possibly created by a lightning strike. Early compasses were made of lodestone suspended on a cord.

Magnetite is a common mineral that has an attraction to a magnet but is not magnetic in itself.

The image shows magnetite, sold on eBay as a Lodestone though at £2 what did I expect.

Fluid activity hidden deep in the Earth’s interior can be visualised through plotting the magnetic field and its fluctuations.

The geomagnetic field, generated by the Earth’s molten core, varies through time; the magnetic poles migrate, go on excursions or reverse polarity. During these periods of flux the strength of the magnetic field changes and this phenomenon is recorded in archaeological artifacts, volcanic rocks, and sediments. The mineral deposits of stalactites store a paleomagnetic history of declination (the deviation of magnetic from geographic north).

Thinking about how magnetic pole reversals are stored in geology. I am modelling some paper clay rocks for future filming visualising the magnetic field using iron filings.

Early navigators using the compass around the 15th century became aware that geomagnetic north would roam position. In 1701 the first map charting the magnetic field declination was produced by British astronomer Edmund Halley.

In the 19th century the study of geomagnetism became one of many passions for explorer polymath Alexander von Humboldt who studied

“what keeps the innermost of the world together, how all is woven together”

and was the first to connect climate with interactions between atmosphere, oceans, land and plant ecology. From meticulous observations he noticed the Earth’s magnetic field intensity increases from the equator to the pole, and that it was also influenced by auroras and solar activity causing magnetic storms.

Magnetic observatories to monitor the Earth’s magnetic field were set up around the globe including one at Greenwich which had to relocate twice due to infrastructure interference (electric railways) and is now based in Devon with a permanent azimuth mark on a concrete obelisk viewed from the north window of the Absolute Hut. I wonder if it is possible to visit.

Magnetotactic bacteria align themselves with the Earth’s magnetic field to navigate using nanoparticles of magnetite crystals covered in biological material called magnetosomes. Each nanoparticle is about 100,000 times smaller than a grain of rice. They are mostly found in water and sediment with little or no oxygen. It has been found that magnetosomes can be biodegraded (dissolved) in human stem cells losing magnetism at first but then reforming into human cells with magnetic sensitive qualities.

There is a daily variation in the magnetosphere caused by sunlight hitting the ionosphere, a layer of the atmosphere about 1000km up. The electrical conductivity of this layer is affected by the solar wind which pressures and squashes the field on the sunlit side while creating a magnetotail pluming from the dark side of the Earth.

Capturing garden activity through the solar cycle with a spycam.

The rotation of the Earth around its axis results in a molecular clock evolved by organisms in alignment with the solar cycle. The Earth’s magnetic field can influence animals’ circadian clocks, through the photoreceptor cryptochrome, which is activated by blue light.

I have recently acquired a drone and have been for a couple of practice flights in Richmond Park’s designated area taking along a few pentagon mirrors. Excited by the possibilities.

Up at 5am to see the tiny points of light that are Venus and Jupiter approaching their conjunction which they performed the following morning hidden by clouds

Research trip to RSPB Snettisham in North Norfolk to see the Whirling Wader Spectacle. The high spring tides push the birds from their feeding grounds on the mudflats of The Wash onto the lagoons of the reserve. The spectacle occurs when the tide is super high during daylight hours in early spring or late autumn when the birds are migrating to and from this site. It is surprising how fast the tide comes in. On arrival in the early evening the sea is a distant strip of light.

Suddenly the gullies are filling and the first murmurations of knots are forming low over the incoming water. The speed of the birds is extraordinary. I was totally ill equipped to capture the spectacle on video.

Fascinating research discussed in the webinar Scientific American live: Bird Migration and Song featuring Professor of Chemistry University of Oxford, Peter Hore, an expert on magnetoreception.

Radicals are molecules that contain an odd number of electrons and are therefore unstable. For most molecules the electrons are paired which cancels out the magnetic force. Birds use three different compasses to navigate across the globe; the sun, the stars and the magnetic field. The Artic tern makes the longest migratory journey, a staggering 25,000 miles.

The theory that birds may use the Earth’s magnetic field to navigate began in the middle of the 19th century, but experiments in Germany with European Robins in the 1960s were the first to prove the connection. The Earth’s magnetic field is extremely weak so the mechanism that can detect this weak force must be very sensitive. Because free radicals are very unstable it doesn’t take much energy to have big effects. The particular cryptochrome molecule used is found in the retina of the eye with the photoreceptor cells. Blue light shined onto Cryptochrome 4 produces radical pairs which are sensitive to the magnetic field. It is excited by blue light but does not respond to red light. The molecules work like a pendant compass, distinguishing the direction of the magnetic field towards pole or equator. This feature arises from the spin direction of the free radical pairs. Both radicals may spin in the same direction or one may spin one way and the other the opposite. There is a lot of processing in the eye before a signal is sent to the brain to act upon.

It is possible birds form a visual perception of the magnetic field. The cone cells in the eye are used by day but may be taken over at night for navigation as this is when birds migrate. Light pollution and electromagnetic noise pollution such as AM radio masts can cause disorientation.

I still have questions about how the birds know where to head for. They may have a map but they still need a destination.

Stunning North Norfolk coastline. It’s so flat here that cliffs are unexpected. Hunstanton Beach was once under a tropical sea 108 million years ago when sea levels were 200m higher. Somewhere in these strata evidence of magnetic pole reversals will be stored.

So much to explore at the National Physical Laboratory Open Day but my favourite room was Magnetic Materials and Sensors. They don’t allow any photography so I can’t share some of the amazing experiments I saw but I have been able to recreate my favourite as it was also the simplest; a magnet dropped into a copper pipe creates an electric current as it falls which gently slows its progress through the tube. So cool. I will be filming this.

Experiments with lenses. It’s often the way that having spent time on a proposal that doesn’t get accepted those ideas do not get wasted but ultimately feed into new work.

Testing ‘The Forms’ as a floor piece.

The immutable truths Plato discovered in geometry belong to the realm of abstract thought and ideals he called The Forms. Twelve pentagons form a dodecahedron which Plato defined as ‘a fifth construction, which the god used for embroidering the constellations on the whole heaven.’ Today it is dark matter that science believes holds the stars in the heavens. In visualisations of dark matter created from cosmological data we see familiar organic patterns emerge; the fronds of dark matter spanning between galaxies could be the spreading branches of trees or the veins under our skin.

Thanks to KIPAC Stanford University for the data visualisations.

Enjoyed a one day 3D Geometry class with Leila Dear at the Princes School of Traditional Arts. I gained so much from the RCA exchange week here that fed into my work for the past several years that I thought a refresher would be useful – and that was before I knew we would be making geometric bubbles. Irresistible.

Out of Studio

Reflections at Workplace Gallery

Sculpture by women artists Nicola Ellis, Hsi-Nong Huang, Patricia Ayres and Olivia Bax.

All works offer up a satisfying conjunction of materiality and form but especially loving Nicola’s ‘Quite a Structure’ which is like a slice of the Earth’s molten core.

HEAVEN NEITHER BURNING FARTHER at The Crypt, St. John on Bethnal Green

Erika Blumenfeld writes “The material comprising our bodies shares cosmic origins with the material comprising the planets, asteroids and comets in our solar system. Scientifically, this material, having derived from distant stars across time, threads back to the primordial material that emerged moments after our universe burst into being. Culturally, our star gazing has filled us with wonder across all civilizations, sparking art and architecture, philosophy and science, mythology, folklore as well as navigation and place-making”.

Visual journeys have been created using the archive, modern science, performative poetry, scanned glacier-ice sent by image transmission, laser-based mapping originally sourced from the Rosetta space mission, the use of historic adaptations, the layering of earthly minerals, and a hunt for asteroid fragments. Held in a crypt under-ground the exhibition takes a poignant look at the myth and science that surround comets, which in theory brought life to Earth but could also end it.

Artists: Julie F Hill, Leah Beeferman, Barry Stone, Pedro Torres, Fryd Frydendahl, Ports Bishop, Claudio Pogo & Magdalena Wysocka Curated by Lucy Helton

Fascinating and beautiful work in this subterranean gateway to the cosmos which rewards following up each artist’s research.

POST TOTEM at OHSH Projects pop up on Oxford Street, curated by Adam Dix and Dale Adcock.
I found the concept of this exhibition very appealing. Reaching back to what connects us. Some innate sense of the sacred.

‘Imagine an artist holding the metaphorical hand of an artist from the previous generation and that artist, doing the same, and so on, back through time, back 30 to 40 thousand years into the unimaginably distant past, when we made the great cave paintings of Lascaux and Maros-Pangkep karst. This imaginative exercise creates an image of an unbroken woven human connection, stretching back through time uniting, individuals into a group, linked by imagination, action and materials.’

Artists showing: Dale Adcock, Simon Burton, Adam Dix, Tim Ellis, Lisa Ivory, Simon Burton, Rachel Howard, Henry Hussey, Dean Melbourne, Yelena Popova, Chantal Powell, Joanna Rajkowska, Alexis Soul Gray, Suzanne Treister.

Seth Price – Art Is Not Human at Sadie Coles

An interesting entanglement of hand and digital process. Raw paintings are photographed and imported to a 3D digital space of geometric shapes, tubes and directional lighting. The effects are then exported and printed onto the original painting.

Melanie Manchot Alpine Diskomiks at Parafin.

Questioning the mediation of the mountain experience. A mountain skyline created from album covers and soundscape from the combined mix of recorded content. Imagine a steady build of music to accompany the climb to a dramatic mountain peak and the overwhelming crescendo as you reach that majestic summit of the sublime. Downstairs choreographed snowploughs score grooves in looping folkdance sequence.

This painting by Luchita Hurtado at Hauser and Wirth made me think of the practical demonstration by Brian Cox showing that in a vacuum a feather and a rock (bowling ball) would fall at the same speed.

“The reason the bowling ball and the feather fall together is because they’re not falling. They are standing still. There is no force acting on them at all.”

“(Einstein) reasoned that if you couldn’t see the background, there would be no way of knowing that the ball and the feathers were accelerating toward the Earth.”

Larry Bell at Hauser and Wirth

‘Although we tend to think of glass as a window, it is a solid liquid that has at once three distinctive qualities: it reflects light, it absorbs light, and it transmits light all at the same time.’ Larry Bell

Everything is Made of Light at Bermondsey Project Space. The artists refer to Jacques Rancière, in his essay, Are Some Things Unrepresentable?, who scrutinizes the challenges faced by images in depicting the world around us.

Mark Kasumovic tackles the problem of trying to represent the invisible through a juxtaposition of images of spaces of discovery and text listing scientific non sequiturs. Mary O’Neill presents us with a world of fragments from which personal narratives must be assembled. Isabella Streffen’s work explores perception and the spaces between digital and emotional communication. Matthew Pell stretches time through capturing light in otherwise transient momentary events.

I felt very in tune with intent of the work here. Particularly Mark Kasumovic’s texts that felt like a snapshot of a research artist’s notebook. All those tantalising lines of enquiry. I liked the premise from Mary O’Neill of the introduction of creatures from the mundanity of an overlooked life, that when situated in a new context, conceive paradise.

Marcus Cope Silver Linings at Peer

Fabulous potent paintings of those vivid memories that are seared into the synapses from times of heightened emotions.

Beautiful and terrible.

Alice Bucknell Swamp City at Hoxton 253 Project Space

Like a dollop of dream topping on a large turd the work offers up a speculative future of luxury ecotourism as investment opportunity in the face of a climate crisis that feels almost inevitable.