Here are a few developments from my residency after a great meeting with Professor Richard Bower and Dr Mark Neyrinck.
There's been a lot going on in my head and I've been making a few models to try to make sense of them all. I had a great meeting with Richard and Mark last week and they were helping me get a sense of the geometry involved in modern cosmology. So I've been playing with and thinking about structures such as neurons, sponges and non-regular/asymmetric polyhedra. I've been trying to map out in a very organic way, the spatial relationships of galaxies and dark matter, and how best to represent the expansion of space in relation to this complex geometry.
From the medieval cosmological perspective I've been focused on the idea of producing expanding and contracting spheres, either literally or the illusion of that motion. Exploring the literal expansion and contraction of spheres, I have been producing spheres of varying 'fidelity', for want of a better word. The idea is that a range of spheres, varying in degrees of perfection, signify the 10 celestial spheres of Grosseteste's time. I am looking to find mechanisms to distort the nesting spheres to their various sizes but feel there is a lot to be gained from looking at elastic structures and the folding mechanisms of origami.
In terms of the illusion of motion of the nesting spheres I aim to do this with the movement of the viewer rather than a traditionally kinetic sculpture.
Mark has wowed me with some images of 3D caustic shapes of imaginary galaxy formations which loosely relate to dual polyhedra, which would be great to investigate further and maybe even 3D print as a tool for understanding potential structure of gravity 'folds'. Mark has also introduced me to the Council of Giants, a collection of galaxies that may very well find its way into some 2d wire reliefs.
I'm hoping to formally reconcile the nesting spheres with the more chaotic dark matter/galaxy structures. I'm intuitively aware there is a solution but I have a lot more physical models to make before that's clear. I'll be playing around with elastic, paper, plastic and fabric in the coming weeks so it's likely to be a fast and furious collection of ideas to both ditch and nurture. In addition to that I will be doing some work with projection, shadow distortions and light painting.