'The Plurality of Worlds 2014' : Open Studio, APT, London: 2014. Recycled polystyrene insulation, steel pan scourers, cotton buds

For my Open Studios this year I prosed to reconstruct the 'Pixels into Stars' piece. However, the studio is daylight lit and not possible to black out. This installation resolved the issue but inverting the experience of the night sky into negative. This entailed cladding the walls with recycled insulation which had the attribute of including lots of little black polystyrene cells embedded in a white matrix; a perfect star-field substrate on which to engage with mapping out my next theory.

Continuing my series of works engaging grand cosmological theory with common everyday or discarded materials, this piece seeks to recreate a section of Interstellar Space in the form of a star map.

In these maps there are usually 6 magnitudes of stars that are denoted by size of graphic. Here I sourced 6 sizes of pan scourer to represent magnitude. Also included are a 'river' of blue cotton buds that seek to emulate flows of electricity around the star fields and lead the eye around the artwork.

The title 'The Plurality of Worlds' comes from the 1657 treatise of the same name by Pierre Borel who was one of the leaders in conceptualising the post-Galilean non-Earth-centric world view to the general public of the time.

Full installation: Click to view full size

Details below (click to enlarge)

   

   

   

 

Inversions below (click to enlarge)