'Opticks' holograms in BBC4's 'Beauty of Diagrams' [repeat broadcast]

The Beauty of Diagrams: Newton’s Prisms, BBC 4 TV, 4 April 2011, 8:30 PM

[originally broadcast 2 Dec 2010]

In spring 2010 the mathematician Marcus du Sautoy interviewed us for a BBC 4 TV series about diagrams in science, because we have made work inspired by Newton's diagrams.

Newton’s Rings and The Fringes of the Shadows of the Knives combine holograms and photographic projection. They were made in the Royal Greenwich Observatory in 1987, with funding by the Arts Council of England (South East Arts). They were last exhibited in the Art Tower Mito, Japan in 2001. For this interview the installations were set up in a TV studio.

This program offers an opportunity to see these works again in the light of the current interest in art & science.


part 1/2 (part 2)

We appear in the third episode, about Newton’s Prisms, first broadcast on 2nd December, 2010.

From the BBC/Tern TV announcement: “Marcus du Sautoy explores the stories behind familiar scientific diagrams. Isaac Newton bought a pair of prisms which were to be the basis of a series of experiments that would unlock a secret that had occupied scientists for centuries - the nature of light itself. To explain, he created a diagram known as The Crucial Experiment. It is a pivotal image in scientific history, a graphic moment when the ancient world was overturned by modern science, as Newton demonstrated that white light is not pure but made up different colours.”


BBC4: The Beauty of Diagrams
A Tern TV Production for BBC4 presented by Marcus du Sautoy, 2010
Series Producer/Director: Michael Waterhouse, Director: Steven Clarke

More about this work on wengam.com:
In the Optical Realm complete illustrated catalog [PDF]
17th Century Optics in 20th Century Art article by Wenyon & Gamble [PDF]
The Beauty of Science, Chris Titterington, essay from the catalog Volumes
Volumes, Wenyon & Gamble, review of the show at the Photographers’ Gallery by Marina Benjamin, New Scientist