Evelina Domnitch

The title refers to the sensation of an image or light trace lingering on the retina after the source of the image is already gone. Here, this metaphor is further enriched by the circumstances that led to the creation of this unrepeatable lasergram. It was exposed during our very first collaborative session with QuTech researchers Laurens Feije and Gerben Timmer. Our collaborators brought along a variety of custom-etched quantum optical slides, used for tuning laser beams that stimulate silicon vacancies in synthetic diamond — a technique being pioneered at QuTech for storing and processing photonic states in quantum computing and quantum internet applications. These slides are comprised of a transparent material with a nanoscopic diffraction pattern etched into its surface. Prior to exposure, as we composed this image by projecting a tightly focused laser beam through a quantum optical slide. Could a diffraction pattern, etched on a surface, curve across the edge of the slide? – such that the projected image appears “after” or beyond the confines of the diffraction grating.

in collaboration with Philippe Vogelenzang

Two corotating vortices, joined together by a slender vortical bridge, drift through an enormous aquarium. Shining through the water’s surface, an expanded laser beam transforms the vortex pair into a moving lens that upwardly projects two black holes encircled by shimmering halos. Vortices may collide with one another (as in the LIGO detections), and if the “wormhole” link between them rips apart, the black holes immediately dissipate. Connecting distant black holes or two sides of the same black hole, might wormholes be an example of cosmic-scale quantum entanglement? This mind-bending conjecture of Juan Maldacena and Leonard Susskind can be traced back to two iconoclastic papers from 1935. Previously thought to be unrelated, the legendary EPR (penned by Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen) engendered the concept of quantum entanglement or “spooky action at a distance”; the second article theorised Einstein-Rosen (ER) bridges, later known as wormholes. The theory equating ER to EPR ultimately implies that the “reliable structure of space-time is due to the ghostly features of entanglement”. (Maldacena) With the generous support of LIGO, Isabel De Sena, Fulcrum Arts and the Carasso Foundation.

in collaboration with LIGO and William Basinski. A dark vortex in the middle of a water-filled basin emits prismatic bursts of rotating light. Akin to a radiant ergosphere surrounding a spinning black hole, Orbihedron evokes the relativistic as well as quantum interpretation of gravity – the reconciliation of which is essential for unraveling black hole behaviour and the origins of the cosmos. Descending into the eye of the vortex, a white laser beam reaches an impassible singularity that casts a whirling circular shadow on the basin’s floor. The singularity lies at the bottom of a dimple on the water’s surface, the crown of the vortex, which acts as a concave lens focussing the laser beam along the horizon of the “black hole” shadow. Light is seemingly swallowed by the black hole in accordance with general relativity, yet leaks out as quantum theory predicts. With the generous support of LIGO, Isabel De Sena and Fulcrum Arts.

in collaboration with LIGO and William Basinski. A dark vortex in the middle of a water-filled basin emits prismatic bursts of rotating light. Akin to a radiant ergosphere surrounding a spinning black hole, Orbihedron evokes the relativistic as well as quantum interpretation of gravity – the reconciliation of which is essential for unraveling black hole behaviour and the origins of the cosmos. Descending into the eye of the vortex, a white laser beam reaches an impassible singularity that casts a whirling circular shadow on the basin’s floor. The singularity lies at the bottom of a dimple on the water’s surface, the crown of the vortex, which acts as a concave lens focussing the laser beam along the horizon of the “black hole” shadow. Light is seemingly swallowed by the black hole in accordance with general relativity, yet leaks out as quantum theory predicts. With the generous support of LIGO, Isabel De Sena and Fulcrum Arts.

Arising from underneath a bath of silicone oil, low frequency sound waves mobilize a pillow of air just above the liquid’s surface, preventing falling oil droplets from coalescing with the bath. As these palpitating spheroids bounce on the air-oil interface their repeated impact incites capillary waves that interlock with the waves of neighboring droplets. This close-range attractive force can result in the orbital motion of droplet pairs and clusters. During more stable modes of excitation, self-organizing geometric rafts emerge in accordance with the closest packing of spheres: the distance between droplets decreases with increasing acoustic frequency, leading to dense lattice formation.

A vacuum or semi-vacuum encased within a gravity and temperature sensitive elastic skin – the scenario of an early universe, a soap bubble, and later, that of a biological membrane. By researching the behavior of soap films, a vast variety of optical, mathematical, thermodynamic and electrochemical discoveries have been made since the time of the Renaissance. One of the earliest means of analogue computing was the soap film calculator (19th century), which tackled geometric problems of minimal surface area. Soap film soft drives are currently being used for blackhole and superstring modeling. In 10000 Peacock Feathers in Foaming Acid we use laser light to scan the surfaces of nucleating and dissipating soap bubble clusters. Unlike ordinary light, the laser's focused beam is capable of crawling through the micro and nano structures within a bubble's skin. When aimed at specific angles, this penetrating light generates a large-scale projection of molecular interactions as well as mind-boggling phenomena of non-linear optics. Bubble behaviors viewed in such proximity evoke the dynamics of living cells (the lipid membranes of which, are direct chemical descendants of soap films).

A 15 kHz acoustic vibration is vertically reflected at a precise distance from its source, generating a standing wave that levitates leaves of gold. The air between the intonator and the reflector is evenly divided into alternating areas of dynamic acoustic pressure and vacuous anti-nodal pockets. Within these pressureless voids, fluids and solids can be suspended and spun by the surrounding sound fields. An evocation of the weightless, frictionless environment commonly found in outer space is coupled with an extended opto-aural awareness of space-time itself: the floating objects modulate the frequency and amplitude of the standing wave that levitates them, consequently influencing one another's motion -- each part is an inseparable, co-emergent reflection of the whole.