a project of Saul Saguatti / basmati and Paolo Caredda / condominium
GRAVITRON
THE NEWEST, CRAZIEST THEORIES
ON SPACE AND TIME
Unbeknowst to the average punter
scientists of Today are coming up with the wildest speculations
on space and time
the big rip
the intelligent design
the multiverse
Outlandish and elegant theories
Approaching the mysteries of life
With the verve of a star trek scriptwriter.
It’s the new frontier of science
Boldly going where schooldays maths has never brought us before
Like a space adventure in the wild world of ideas
the tv viewer can discover and experience these new theories
(rather than fully understand them) in a series of animated shorts.
STRING THEORY
the fundamental forces of nature are superstrings of extremely small scale
which vibrate at specific frequencies
BUBBLE UNIVERSES
Our universe and others are created by collisions between membranes in
an 11-dimensional space.
The bubble universe concept involves creation of universes from the quantum
foam of a "parent universe."
DARK MATTER / DARK ENERGY
the universe contains far more matter than we can see, indicating that
the remainder is dark.
DARK ENERGY PERMEATES ALL OF SPACE
The most recent observations are consistent with a Universe made up of
74% dark energy, 22% dark matter, and 4% ordinary matter.
How do you give bodies, colors and motion
to flights of abstract Mathematics?
How do you make them palatable and entertaining?
GRAVITRON short clips are easy and intriguing on the eye
Capturing the viewer’s attention to new worlds
Through sound and vision we are brought to glimpse concepts
We would find quite hard to swallow on paper.
The short clips draw
from the reservoir of cutting edge Animation:
Super8 stop-motion,
Playing with organic materials (water, colour pigments, crystals)
Lightshows
The vast array of technics rely on imagination and hand crafting rather than software
each gravitron piece enfolds into a single theory
the hypnotic images, the dreamlike music, the floating sparse voiceovers
transmitting a sense of wonder rather than a dreary dissertation.
GRAVITRON
reminds the live video performance of a Vj
creating and ever transforming images to a costant flow of music
resolume and sweetbox are some of the applications employed
the realtime mixing and layering hinting at the invisible motions of the
universe
music fills the screen
luscious electronica tracks
originally cut and mixed for the show
think of gravitron shorts as
island universes in the channel programming
sudden apparitions of new concepts and possibilities
dream sequences awakening us brefly to
what lies outside.
HERETIC
SCIENTISTS ON THE EDGE
Controversial men of science.
whose theories defy the conventions
and the dogmas of official sciencedom.
HERETIC mixes live footage
(the house, the town, his working day and leisuretime)
and animated visions of their works and thought.
Unhortodox views are illustrated
Giving immediacy and emotional impact to complex speculations.
Think of an Heretic piece as an offbeat science class
The flurry of technics borrowed from art visual performances
(Anmated stills / digital handpainting / impromptu electronica)
mirroring the genius’s chalkboard
where formulas are sketched, erased, rewritten over and over
KARY BANKS MULLIS
is an American biochemist who developed a central technique in molecular
biology for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry .
This invention has created revolutions in biochemistry, molecular biology,
genetics, medicine and forensics.
Mullis has more recently become known for idiosyncratic and sometimes
controversial views on topics unrelated to biochemistry.
In his1998 essay collection, Dancing Naked in the Mind Field, he relates
a number of accounts that some consider strange,
including detailing his use of LSD and his belief that he had experienced
an extraterrestrial encounter.
Critics have frequently cited these episodes in order to question his
scientific judgment.
Mullis became known to a wider public as a potential forensic DNA analyst
and witness for the defense in the O.J. Simpson murder case.
RICHARD DAWKINS
introduced the fascinating concept of Memetics
Any cultural artefact is a meme:
tunes, catch-phrases, beliefs, clothes fashions.
Memes propagate themselves spreading from mind to mind in the cultural
atmosphere just like living creatures.
He is a supporter of the Great Ape Project
a movement to extend certain moral and legal rights to all great apes.
GRIGORI PERELMAN
is a Russian mathematician who has made landmark contributions to Riemannian
geometry and geometric topology.
Disappointed with the ethical standards of the field of mathematics,
he refused to accept the equivalent of the Oscar and has abandoned mathematics
entirely.
He currently finds mathematics a painful topic to discuss.
According to a recent interview, Perelman is currently jobless, living
with his mother in St Petersburg
ROGER PENROSE
Back in the fifties this mathematician devised a series of impossible
objects later popularised by the work of the artist Escher (the impossible
stair, the impossible triangle…)
For all his awards and prizes Penrose's views on the human thought process
are not widely accepted in scientific circles.
Penrose has written controversial books on the connection between physics
and the mind.
He argues that human consciousness cannot be explained by
the laws of physics and no computer will ever manage to duplicate.the
processes of the human mind.
