Bridge Residency Program

“The Bridge” is a four-month virtual residency program (September-January), where artists and scientists are paired to collaborate on a project of their choice. Collaborating can generate new ideas and provide new perspectives which can lead to innovation in existing fields or the creation of new ones.

Can art influence science, as science often influences art?

In the fall of 2015 I was selected from the Sciart initiative as a Bridge resident. My collaborator was Matej Vakula, a NY based artist with an interest for astrophysics. Due to my involvement with the McCallion Planetarium, we decided to work on a production of a full-dome movie about nuclear astrophysics, named “The DRAGON theorem”, inspired from the experiment I was working for my Ph.D. thesis. You can find more about this from an interview I gave to TRIUMF media team about it.

The story explores the evolution of natural philosophy from ancient Greece (Democritus, Heraclitus and others) since the era of Quantum Physics and Theory of Relativity in a non-linear narrative and discusses the existential relationship between knowledge, fundamental research, culture and nature. During the movie, nuclear physics experimental data from TRIUMF laboratory in Vancouver will be manipulated and visualized using Autodesk Maya and ROOT to help the audience becoming aware of their profound connection with the cosmic web as its living part.

Matej and I were keeping a weekly blog where we were discussing our progress and ideas. We are currently working in the production of the movie.