2018
x3 CG animations on square screens, silent
A Semiconductor work by Ruth Jarman and Joe Gerhardt.
Three animations made with raw data from the ATLAS detector at CERN particle physics laboratory, Geneva, Switzerland. Removed from its scientific framework, the data becomes a physical form in its own right, something to explore as an artistic medium. Each animation offers a different perspective of the data, presented on custom made square screens.
Acquired for Audemars Piguet Collection, CERN collection and 2 private collections.
HALO 0.1 / 0.2 / 0.3, Broken Symmetries, Kumu Art Museum, Tallinn, Estonia, 2021. Photo: Stanislav Stepaško / Kumu Art Museum
HALO 0.1 / 0.2 / 0.3, National Center of Contemporary Arts, (CNAC), Santiago, Chile, 2019. Photo: CNAC
HALO 0.3, 2018
HALO 0.2, 2018
HALO 0.3, 2018
HALO 0.1 / 0.2 / 0.3, National Center of Contemporary Arts, (CNAC), Santiago, Chile, 2019. Photo: CNAC
2016
9:00 / 9:50
two channel HD + single channel HD
A Semiconductor work by Ruth Jarman and Joe Gerhardt.
Where Shapes Comes From is a moving image work which considers how science translates nature, on an atomic scale.
Filmed in the mineral sciences laboratory at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, a scientist goes about his daily work in rock and mineral preparatory labs; cutting up large meteorites and preparing mineral samples for scientific study. Accompanying this, mineralogist Jeff Post describes the coming together of atoms to form matter. He details formations of organised structures and patterns as if they are happening in real-time, in front of our eyes, transcending time and space.
Raw seismic data, collected from the land forming Mariana deep sea trench, has been converted directly into sound and controls computer generated animations, which are composited into the labs. They depict interpretations of visual scientific forms associated with atomic structures, and the technologies which capture them. Sitting alongside these animated formations are hand-made assemblages of discarded materials and other curiosities, which now bear human signatures. They unite in bringing a sense of playfulness and personal touch to the ordinarily rigorous framework of science.By combining these scientific processes, languages and products associated with matter formation in the context of the everyday, they become fantastical and strange encouraging us to consider how science translates nature and question our experiences of the physical world.
Filmed at the Mineral Sciences Laboratory, Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, Washington D.C. during its 100th year. Audio made from Mariana Trench seismic data courtesy of the IRIS (Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology) Network. Dialogue: Jeffrey E. Post, Geologist, Curator in Charge, Mineral Collection, Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, Washington D.C., U.S.A. Scientist: Jonathon Cooper
Supported by Arts Council England. Co-commissioned by EDP Foundation and Phoenix Leicester.
Where Shapes Come From, Sydney Biennale, AGNSW, 2018. Photo: Document Photography
Where Shapes Come From (still), 2016
Where Shapes Come From, Fiber Festival, Amsterdam, 2017. Photo: Fiber Festival
Where Shapes Come From, Le Lieu Unique, Nantes, solo show, 2018. Photo: Martin Argyroglo
Where Shapes Come From (still), 2016
Where Shapes Come From, Sydney Biennale, AGNSW, 2018. Photo: Document Photography
Where Shapes Come From (still), 2016
Where Shapes Come From (still), 2016
Where Shapes Come From, Shenzen New Media Arts Festival, China, 2019
Where Shapes Come From, Le Lieu Unique, Nantes, solo show, 2018. Photo: Martin Argyroglo
Where Shapes Come From, Shenzen New Media Arts Festival, China, 2019
Earthworks is a five channel computer generated animation, which creates an immersive experience of the phenomena of landscape formation through the scientific and technological devices that are used to study it. Masses of colourful layers are animated by the sound-scapes of earthquake, volcanic, glacial and human activity, recorded as seismic waves, which form spectacular fluctuating marbled waveforms.
Semiconductor have employed the scientific technique of Analogue Modelling, which uses layers of real world multi-coloured particles and application of pressure and motion to simulate tectonic and seismic forces. As the layers become deformed they reproduce the generation and evolution of landscapes in nature over thousands of years, revealing them to be in a constant state of flux.
Semiconductor have acquired seismic data captured as a result of land shifting and forming, from all over the world. There are four distinct sections to the work, each using a different set of seismic data. This includes; glacial, earthquake, volcano and human-made seismic activity captured at La Planta quarry, Spain, to represent the Anthropocene, a new geological era influenced by humans. The data has been translated to audio to form the soundtrack of the work, and simultaneously control the animation of the layers. The data as sound directly sculpts the image, re-animates the landscape, and reflects the symbiotic relationship between landscape formation and seismic vibrations. The seismic audio is rich and full of the intricacies of the dynamics of our planet in motion.
By using seismic data to control the masses of layers Semiconductor are not only playing with the idea that it is these forces that have shaped landscapes, but also that being an event that occurs beyond a human-time frame, landscape formation can only be experienced through scientific technological mediation of nature. It produces information about time, space and phenomena that no human consciousness could possibly have witnessed. It is as if we are watching hundreds of thousands of years played out in front of our eyes, enabling us to bear witness to events which ordinarily occur on geological time-frames.
By adopting the analogue modelling techniques, the work celebrates the revelatory capacities of modern science and technologies to create a kind of technological sublime, whilst simultaneously inviting viewers to consider the philosophical problems posed by such technologically mediated observations of imperceptible phenomena.
Earthworks is commissioned by SónarPLANTA Produced by Advanced Music
Thanks to: Fundació Sorigué Sónar Festival/Advanced Music Nigel Bax
University of Barcelona:
Dr Albert Casas Ponsati
Raul Lovera Carrasco
Mahjoub Himi Benomar
Dr. Josep Anton Muñoz
Oriol Ferrer
Cai Matthews
Jose Luis de Vicente
Salvador Rey Nagel
Seismic data courtesy of the Iris (Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology) Consortium
Catching the Light, video documentation, ArtScience Museum, Singapore, 2014
2014
multi-channel HD moving image with 6 metre wide Alucore screens
A Semiconductor work by Ruth Jarman and Joe Gerhardt.
Catching the Light is a moving image installation which explores how science and technology frame our experiences of the natural world.
Created using visual data collected by space telescopes, the six metre wide projection is made up of thousands of images which have been assembled to create time-lapse sequences. By collaging these images of space together, Semiconductor have disrupted their original spatial relationships, to create new patterns and points of reference. They have, in effect, remapped the sky.
By collecting the data in its rawest form Semiconductor are able to present it as the telescope captured it. Ordinarily scientists would remove any noise, anomalies or signatures of the technology associated with the capturing process, but Semiconductor have embraced these artefacts, using them to remind us of how our perception of deep space is framed by the tools and processes of science.
The shape of the screens reflect the space observatories’ image capturing process: as they photograph chosen parts of the sky, the trail of images produce assorted shaped arrays, which are then used as points of reference in the data archives. Semiconductor have combined three of these arrays in their native format to make the screen composition. Used in this way they become portholes or windows into the universe, they also suggest that what we are seeing is only a part of a much larger picture.
The screens are installed away from the wall to create floating objects. The aluminium composite material used to fabricate them is commonly used in the production of scientific objects sent into space; as well as being light weight and strong it typically bears its honeycomb innards revealing its workings. The matt black surface of the screen resonates with how scientists and engineers use the mattest of blacks in the production of space optics to absorb unwanted light.
The four channel sound runs along the width of the screen, shifting as events appear and disappear. Using the luminescence of the image to create and control sound, the visual events carve a sonic space out of a field of noise, producing a singing universe of harmonic tones, reminiscent of radio telescope data translated into audible frequencies.
Semiconductor are interested in how technology, made to study nature, mediates our experiences and understanding of it. Here, by employing the products of science they have created an interpretation of deep space framed by the technology that is made to capture it, leading us to question what we are experiencing.
Catching the Light is commissioned by ArtScience Museum at Marina Bay Sands in Singapore for Da Vinci: Shaping the Future exhibition, 2014-2015. Data obtained from the Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes (MAST) Programmer Julian Weaver
Currently fundraising for production of single channel version. If you’re interested in supporting this please get in in touch.
Catching the Light (detail), ArtScience Museum, Singapore, 2014
Catching the Light (detail), ArtScience Museum, Singapore, 2014
Catching the Light (detail), ArtScience Museum, Singapore, 2014
Catching the Light (detail), ArtScience Museum, Singapore, 2014
2014
site specific two-channel moving image work
A Semiconductor work by Ruth Jarman and Joe Gerhardt.
Play of Light is a site specific, two channel moving image installation commissioned for the newly renovated brutalist Chichester Festival Theatre. Incidental in nature, this art work explores Moya and Powell’s architectural vision through animated sequences of projected light and shadows.
The shadow sequences move slowly but perceptibly as if cast by time-lapse animations of the sun or passing vehicles. As the light source moves, layers of the architecture interact and shift across each other, producing animated shadows. Caused by the phenomena of motion parallax they abstract the architecture, to create new forms and shifting patterns. The slow motion of the shadows allow for contemplation of these choreographies, as they morph and merge to reveal the natural rhythms of the architecture.
Working with a digital architectural model of Chichester Festival Theatre, Semiconductor created an artificial sun, which they animated to cast time-lapse shadows through the building. By physically deconstructing the model into many scenes, they have created multiple time-lapse sequences, which offer new and familiar viewpoints through the building, encouraging a reconsideration of the architectures formal aspects.
Motion introduces a new dimension to the architectural stage, literally bringing the building to life. By transforming the enclosed static condition of architecture to one which is open and dynamic, Semiconductor have made a kinetic sculpture on an architectural scale, which alters our experience of the building.
Optical nuances of light have been mimicked to create an authentic play of shadow and light; subtle phenomena such as blurring, bleeding and visual noise have been employed to play to the eyes sensitivities. Colours within the fabric of the building have been mirrored in the work and expanded on as a play on theatrical stage lighting: the building has become performer.
The digitally animated shadows are projected onto two interior rough concrete walls, which mirror each other. Each wall has its own distinct projection which explores each scene from a differing angle. The shadows appear as if they are being cast in situ: echoing elements of the surrounding environment, they fall incidentally on the walls.
The Shaping Grows by Semiconductor for Swarovski, image David Levene. Installation view at the Design Museum, London, 2012
2012
03.00 minute loop
4 channel HD + 4 channel audio
A Semiconductor work by Ruth Jarman and Joe Gerhardt.
The Shaping Grows is a computer generated animation of a subterranean cavern, brought to life through seismic data. Fantastical mineral crystals chaotically emerge and evolve according to the natural resonance of our shifting planet. These manifestations reveal atomic structures in their rawest form providing a window into the make-up of the physical world, where simple shapes come together to create intricate and complex formations. Here, Semiconductor draw a parallel between these basic molecular structures and the building blocks of the digital world, a world which has become the prism through which we increasingly experience reality.
The animation spans multiple time frames condensing geological events and processes through time-lapse techniques, allowing us to bear witness to mineral crystal growth patterns and the traces they leave behind. Mineral crystals can become consumed by larger formations or play host to wildly different structures, as physical conditions change over time and favour certain elemental and chemical reactions. Matter can also become trapped inside formations as they grow, creating ‘inclusions’. The resulting objects store the memory of their making and can be read to learn the story of their evolution and the conditions in which they grew.
Semiconductor have collected seismic data of recent earthquake activity from around the world and converted it into sound. This directly animates and controls the formations and provides a sound-scape of the Earth in a state of flux.
Commissioned by Swarovski for the exhibition Digital Crystal at the Design Museum, London.
Worlds in the Making, FACT (Foundation for Art and Creative Technology), Liverpool, UK, 2011. Photo: Brian Slater
2011
23.00 minutes
3 channel HD
A Semiconductor work by Ruth Jarman and Joe Gerhardt.
Worlds in the Making is an epic three channel moving image work that explores how we observe, experience and create an understanding of the physical origins of the world around us. By appropriating the tools and processes of volcanology to re-interpret the primordial landscapes of our volcanic planet, Semiconductor create a world slightly removed from the one we think we know, disrupting our every day assumptions of reality and questioning how science affects our experience of the natural world.
In the work the use of audio investigates our relationship with the physical, scientific and ephemeral nature of sound. Seismic data collected from beneath volcanoes and translated into audio evokes images of rocks crunching and grinding below the Earth and is used as a sculptural tool to generate elaborate CG animations of matter forming as mineral crystals. A scientist’s dialogue appears to guide us through extraordinary landscapes while Oren Ambarchi’s composition overwhelms as it brings an emotional connection to place.
The viewer is transported through dystopian landscapes, strangely exquisite animations, fantastical vistas, and natural phenomena to a world between science fiction and science fact.
Commissioned by Jacqui Davies and FACT, Foundation for Art and Creative Technology.Supported by Arts Council England. Gulbenkian Galapagos Artists Fellowship. Smithsonian Artists Research Fellowship.
Credits:
Music by Oren Ambarchi – Published by Touch Music (MCPS) Richard S. Fiske – Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, Mineral Sciences Department: for his oratory skills, field notes and methodical tephra sorting. Ellen Thurneau – Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, Mineral Sciences Department. William G. Melson – Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, Mineral Sciences Department: for his audio recordings of Arenal Volcano, Costa Rica erupting. Jonathan M. Lees, Professor of Geological Sciences, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA. For his seismic data collected at Tungurahua volcano, Ecuador which features in the work.. Gregory P. Waite, Assistant Professor of Geophysics, Michigan Technological University, USA. For his seismic data from Fuego Volcano, Guatemala and Mount St. Helens, Washington, USA. Jorge Ordonez at Instituto Geofisico, Quito Ecuador Adam and Miriam at Instituto Geofisico, Quito Ecuador
Global Volcanism Program, Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History Dennis Geist, Professor of Geology at the University of Idaho, USA Gorki Ruiz at Instituto Geofisico, Quito Ecuador Instituto Geofisico Volcano Observatory, Tungurahua, Ecuador
Scientific paper: Liquid Sulfur at Volcan Azufre, Galapagos Islands by W.E. Colony and Bert E. Nordle, 1973. Charles Darwin Research Station Library, Santa Cruz, Galapagos, Ecuador.
Produced by Jacqui Davies.
preview of Worlds in the Making installation – to watch HD full screen double-click the image
Worlds in the Making, Crystallize, Old Billingsgate, London, 2013
Worlds in the Making, FACT (Foundation for Art and Creative Technology), solo show, 2011. Photo: Brian Slater
Worlds in the Making (still), 2011
Worlds in the Making, Semiconductor: The Technological Sublime, City Gallery Wellington, solo show, 2019. Photo: Shaun Waugh
Worlds in the Making (still), 2011
Worlds in the Making, Semiconductor: The Technological Sublime, City Gallery, Wellington, solo show, 2019. Photo: Shaun Waugh
Worlds in the Making (still), 2011
Worlds in the Making (still), 2011
Worlds in the Making, FACT (Foundation for Art and Creative Technology), solo show, 2011. Photo: Brian Slater
2011
various lengths
multi-channel SD
A Semiconductor work by Ruth Jarman and Joe Gerhardt.
Inferno Observatory is a multi-channel moving image work that explores humankind’s complex relationship with natural phenomena. During a fellowship at the Mineral Sciences Laboratory in the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, Washington DC, Semiconductor unearthed a 16mm volcano film archive shot by volcanologists in the field, it reveals spectacular occurrences and curious, obsessive and sometimes absurd processes of observing and studying volcanoes.
In the work, these films have been re-contextualised to emphasise and examine three distinct relationships; the erupting volcano as all-powerful and humbling, the spectacle as people gather to watch in collective amazement, photograph and be photographed and the taming of the volcano through scientific probing, measurement and human endeavour.
Archive footage courtesy of Mineral Sciences Department, Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, Washington DC. Commissioned by Jacqui Davies and FACT, Foundation for Art and Creative Technology. Supported by Arts Council England. Smithsonian Artists Research Fellowship.
Credits
Global Volcanism Program, Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, Scientists films, film archive.
Music by Peeesseye. Andreas Bick, sound recording of Mt. Yassur Volcano, Tanna Island, Vanuatu. Professor Willy Aspinall, Earth Sciences, Bristol University, UK. For his audio recording ‘St Vincent 1979’. Jonathan M. Lees, Professor of Geological Sciences, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA. For his seismic data collected at Tungurahua volcano. Gregory P. Waite, Assistant Professor of Geophysics, Michigan Technological University, USA. For his seismic data from Fuego Volcano, Guatemala and Mount St. Helens, Washington, USA.
Produced by Jacqui Davies.
Inferno Observatory video documentation, FACT, Liverpool, UK, solo show, 2011
Inferno Observatory, Worlds in the Making, FACT, Liverpool, UK, solo show, 2011
Inferno Observatory (still), 2011
Inferno Observatory (still), 2011
Inferno Observatory (still), 2011
Inferno Observatory, Worlds in the Making, FACT, Liverpool, UK, solo show, 2011
2011
various lengths
HD
A Semiconductor work by Ruth Jarman and Joe Gerhardt.
Crystallised is a series of digital mineral crystal animations generated and animated by sound recordings of ice crystals. Each structure takes on a different form, growing and evolving in exquisite detail. Mineral crystals reveal atomic structures in their rawest form and provide a window into the make-up of the physical world, where simple shapes come together to create intricate and complex formations. With this series of works, Semiconductor draw a parallel between these basic molecular structures and the building blocks of the digital world, which has become the prism through which we increasingly experience reality. The animations suggest pre-ordained patterns and order that appear to underlie everything and lead us to question our experiences of the very fabric of our world.
Crystallised, Worlds in the Making, FACT, Liverpool, UK, solo show, 2011
2010
15:00 minutes
HD single + multi-channel versions
A Semiconductor work by Ruth Jarman and Joe Gerhardt.
Heliocentric uses time-lapse photography and astronomical tracking to plot the sun’s trajectory across a series of landscapes. The entire environment is seen panning past the camera whilst the sun stays in the centre of each frame, enabling us to gauge the earth’s rotation and orbit around the sun. As the Suns light becomes disrupted by passing weather conditions and the environment through which we encounter it, it audibly plays them as if it were a stylus.
It is usually all but impossible to visualize how the earth moves around the sun, even though we know it to be true. Instead we ‘see’ the sun move around us. The ‘heliocentric’ view of the universe was debated from the third century BC onwards and remained contentious into modern times.
Shooting into the sun creates many intriguing artifacts; lens flares and glare spill over the landscape, white outs burn the image, and colours bleed into one, creating aureoles. The power of the sun still exceeds what both the human eye and the artificial eye of the camera can bear. And whilst our knowledge of the universe is ever-growing, we can only encounter and know it from our own humble vantage point.
2008
10:00 minutes
HD single channel floor projection + expanded version
A Semiconductor work by Ruth Jarman and Joe Gerhardt.
Over time, celestial patterns can reveal themselves through the play of light and shadow on the world around us. Out of the Light is a CGI time based sculpture, which recreates these shadow phenomena to explore how we can make sense of the world through observation; we experience a solar eclipse as observed through the branches of a tree, the rhythm of a city as its shadows phase from days to months to years and the transit of Venus observed through the construction of simple human made tools. Viewing these events with the unaided eye allows for anomalies in the quality and nature of light which are played upon here, to explore our perceptual sensitivities.
Commissioned by Arcadi, Paris
Solar audio courtesy of Alexander G.Kosovichev at Stanford University.
Installation photograph; Wild Sky at Edith Russ House For Media Art, Germany. Courtesy Franz Wamhof
Out of the Light, Let There be Light, HEK, Basel, solo show, 2013. Expanded installation of Out of the Light.
Out of the Light (still), 2008
Out of the Light, Wild Sky, Edith Russ Site for Media Art, Oldenburg, Germany, 2011. Photo: Franz Wamhof.
2006
05:02 minutes
HD single channel + 3 channel
A Semiconductor work by Ruth Jarman and Joe Gerhardt.
Earth Moves is an exploration into how unseen forces affect the fabric of our world. By collecting field recordings and using them to directly animate photographs of the landscapes from which they came, the limits of human perception are exposed, revealing a world which is unstable and in a constant state of animation. As the forces of acoustic waves come into play on our surroundings, we bear witness to vast undulating terrains, which challenge our everyday experiences of the world around us.
The South-East of England is explored through a series of five audio controlled photographic panoramas.
Earth Moves is an Arts Council England commission and is permanently installed at the South East offices, Brighton. Earth Moves was developed from an idea initiated during participation in Greg Daville’s City Running, Brighton March 2006. Three screen version of Earthmoves commissioned by Lovebytes.
2006
various lengths
SD / HD / single channel + multi-channel versions
A Semiconductor work by Ruth Jarman and Joe Gerhardt.
Brilliant Noise takes us into the data vaults of solar astronomy. After sifting through hundreds of thousands of computer files, made accessible via open access archives, Semiconductor have brought together some of the sun’s finest unseen moments. These images have been kept in their most raw form, revealing the energetic particles and solar wind as a rain of white noise. This grainy black and white quality is routinely cleaned up by NASA, hiding the processes and mechanics in action behind the capturing procedure. Most of the imagery has been collected as single snapshots by ground based observatories and satellites, they are then reorganised into their spectral groups to create time-lapse sequences. The soundtrack highlights the hidden forces at play upon the solar surface, by directly translating areas of intensity within the image brightness into layers of audio manipulation and radio frequencies.
Thanks to the following solar observatories whose data archives were used in the making of this film: Mount Wilson Observatory UCLA, Lasco/SOHO Naval Research Laboratory, TRACE/LMSAL, Big Bear Solar Observatory/NJIT, SST/Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Gong/National Solar Observatory/AURA/NSF Thanks also to: Steven Christie, Iain Hannah, the CSE team and all at the space sciences Lab. UC Berkeley.
Brilliant Noise was made during an Arts Council England International Artists Fellowship at the NASA Space Sciences Laboratory, UC Berkeley, California, USA.
Awarded second prize by the Science Film Festival, a Coruna Spain. 2008. Awarded second prize at Onion City Experimental Film and Video Festival 2006. Awarded Best Video at Experimental Film and Video Festival, Seoul, Korea 2006.
