Lewis Andrews
'SMBH' arose after working on the 'Singularity' series of artworks during the 'Scientia ' project.
‘SMBH’ connects the distant monsters hiding in the cosmos with the delicate paradise of our pale blue dot. Astronomers managed to photograph not one but two shadows of black holes in recent years. A great achievement of not only science but humanity. For humanity, to photograph a black hole is not only a quest for the actual photograph. It’s a quest to travel to the edge of the unknown at the event horizon and to stare face to face with an object that currently turns our understanding of physics upside down. 'SMBH' differs from the 'Singularity' works as they attempt to look at the true titans of the cosmos hiding within the centres of galaxies. Their size becomes just as mindboggling as attempting to explain them with our understanding of physics.
Breaking down the distance between these colossal gravitational machines and the viewer, 'SMBH' has been created with the use of gravity on a much smaller scale. Created using a careful set up of light, water and gravity and then through various digital editing, the work attempts to open a window up close and personal with some of the true titans of the cosmos. Somewhere, even light cannot escape if it strays too close.
Gravitational Waves
The detection of ripples in space-time created by objects of high mass offers a new way to view the cosmos from when it was a young universe, comparable to when the first optical telescope was invented. Everything in the universe produces vibrations within space-time. However, most objects, including Earth, are undetectable due to how weak they are from smaller masses. However, titanic collisions between high-mass objects like colliding Neutron Stars & Black Holes generate these gravitational waves in strength, which we can detect here on Earth despite the fact they occurred halfway across the universe billions of years ago.
White Holes
'White Hole' visualises the theoretical twin of a black hole. Very similar to a Black Hole, a White Hole could be big or small, stationary or spin, electrically charged, and surrounded by a ring of dust and debris. Discovered mathematically and not directly observed in our universe, White Holes are opposite to black holes because matter would come out instead of being pulled in. It would have a region of outward-flowing spacetime and, although it would still have an event horizon, would prohibit entry. Everything outside must stay outside, and everything inside must be ejected.
White Holes form part of the theory for an 'Einstein Rosen Bridge' wormhole in which matter enters a singularity through a black hole with time running forwards and emerges out in a sort of mirror universe where time runs backwards. Matter that fell into the black hole in our universe would emerge out of the white hole in the parallel universe. Unfortunately, these are not traversable wormholes as they take an almost infinite time to cross and close in the middle. Nevertheless, it's interesting to consider there may be a portal to a parallel universe behind every black hole where, on the other side, a white hole is ejecting material that entered via our universe.
Singularity - post-scientia year
‘Singularity’ connects the distant monsters hiding in the cosmos with the delicate paradise of our pale blue dot. Astronomers managed to photograph not one but two shadows of black holes in recent years. A great achievement of not only science but humanity. Born out of the death of supergiant stars, or in most recent theories, the collapsing of giant gas clouds in the early universe, these titans will populate the cosmos for what seems almost an infinite amount of years to come. For humanity, to photograph a black hole is not only a quest for the actual photograph. It’s a quest to travel to the edge of the unknown at the event horizon and to stare face to face with an object that currently turns our understanding of physics upside down.
Breaking down the distance between these colossal gravitational machines and the viewer, Lewis’s ‘Singularity’ work has been created with the use of gravity on a much smaller scale. Created using a careful set up of light, water and gravity and then through various digital editing, the work attempts to open a window up close and personal with some of the true titans of the cosmos. Somewhere, even light cannot escape if it strays too close.
