|
Cambridge,
MA • For the past three years, Susan Gamble and Michael Wenyon have been using the
imaging technology of astronomy to record the work of astronomers at MIT's Haystack
Observatory in Westford, Massachusetts. With digital cameras, mapping techniques,
and holography, Wenyon & Gamble have investigated the visual environment of the
Observatory, creating works that reflect the human and cosmic aspects of the scientists'
world.
The works,
presented in the forthcoming exhibition Observing the Observers..., include
a 16-foot panorama taken by a camera attached to the 120-foot dish of the radio telescope.
In collaboration with the telescope operators, the artists directed the instrument
to map out the architecture of its own structure, a geodesic dome now flattened onto
paper to reveal the repeating pattern and geometric nature of its engineering.
The exhibition
will also include holograms, radar maps of the moon made for Apollo, and other astronomical
images selected by the artists from the Observatory's archives. A color catalog will be available
with an essay by Debra Bricker-Balken
based on interviews with the artists and the astronomers.
The artists
have worked in two previous observatories, The Royal Greenwich Observatory UK, 1986-86,
and the Royal Observatory Edinburgh, 1993-94. Their work has been shown at the Whitney
Museum, New York (1991), The Art Tower, Mito, Japan (1992), the Victoria and Albert
Museum, London, and most recently at the Boston Athenaeum, 1998. They were awarded
a UNESCO prize for the aesthetic development of new technology in 1993.
The MIT Office
of the Arts, the MIT Haystack Observatory, and the LEF Foundation have supported
Wenyon & Gamble's residency. MIT Museum's Compton Gallery is located under the
main MIT dome at 77 Massachusetts Avenue in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Hours are 9-5
Monday-Friday.
Admission
is free.
Press
Contact: Kathleen Thurston-Lighty, MIT Museum,
617-253-4422, ktl@mit.edu |
|
|