The first prize winning science and tech art entry of Ms Pery Burge

It is always a great pleasure to feature the work of science-artists who are members of Art Lab.
The work of Ms. Pery Burge, an artist in residence in the Thermofluids Lab at the College of Engineering, Mathematics and Physical Sciences at Exeter University, a position funded by the Leverhulme Trust, is going places. Her photo, entitled ‘Sci-fi Garden Growing’, showing vortices in a soap film earned her the first prize in the Branch’s photo competition at the Festival of Physics in Bristol on 3 rd March, 2012.

Winner: Sci-fi Garden Growing’
Sci-fi garden

Winner: Sci-fi Garden Growing’

These two sequential images are of vertically arranged soap film, separated by less than one second. The source of flow comes from a mixture of detergent and glycerol draining from bubbles, not seen, at the bottom of the blue vortex ‘stems’ - the images have been inverted for aesthetic purposes.

Vortices push through oncoming speckled red flow; their shapes modified by this flow, becoming rounded and mushroom-shaped. In the face of the flow, the vortices may also bifurcate - the tall blue form stretching upward on the extreme left divides to accommodate oncoming flow. The relative velocities of upward and downward flow help define the shapes and patterns as they appear.
Source: http://www.iop.org/activity/branches/south_west/sw/news/12/page_549...
South West Branch Photo Competition

From 5 October, The Forum at the University of Exeter will host … the pattern is new in every moment.

The exhibition includes images, videos, and a 3D sculpture combining a unique mixture of light, bubbles and fluid.

For the last year, Pery Burge has been Leverhulme Trust-funded artist-in-residence at the College of Engineering, Mathematics and Physical Sciences. She has experimented with inks, water and other fluids to explore natural processes, creating images of fluid flow by photographing or filming the ink as it moves on and in the water. She also photographs the patterning of light on glass.

Much of the work on display is the outcome of her collaboration with University scientists, engineers and technicians.

Pery Burge said: "Working at the University has given me the opportunity to develop some exciting new techniques, with some surprising results. University technicians have helped me with using some wonderful equipment in the Fluids Laboratory, and I have enjoyed fruitful discussions with scientists and engineers. The Forum is a beautiful space and I am delighted to have the opportunity to show my work there."

The title of the exhibition is a quote from T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets and the aim is to explore how pattern changes through transformation, modification, self-embellishment, superimposition and decay.

The exhibition…the pattern is new in every moment will be in the Forum, University of Exeter Streatham Campus from Friday 5 October to Wednesday 21 November 2012, 8am-8pm. Entry is free

Pery’s residency and this exhibition are supported by the Leverhulme Trust.

This movie is of a sculpture, 'Hubble Bubble. Pery says:

'Hubble Bubble' is the culmination of many ideas over the past few months, developed by myself and members of Exeter University.

The actual sculpture can be viewed at my exhibition currently running at the Forum Building, Exeter University. The Forum space is actually featured at the beginning and end of the video. Entitled '... the pattern is new in every moment', the exhibition is on until 26th November, 2012.

The sculpture is a unique combination of light, bubbles and fluid. Organized and free flows of both water and air are juxtaposed and illuminated in a sequence of coloured patterns. From the scientific point of view, we have a complex dynamic system where several sets of bubbles and flow interact in separate environments, eventually descending, sometimes with stroboscopic effects, to interact with each other in the large area of water below. From the artistic point of view, Hubble Bubble is a fascinating changing sculpture of light, bubbles, fluid and sound ... a sequence of natural and organized fluidic patterning combined with subtle shifts of light and punctuated by the beautiful sound of bursting bubbles. As we look in from the side below the water level, we seem to enter another world where bubbles rise in sharp relief against glowing light, and shadowy spherical forms appear.

In the accompanying soundtrack, we hear some of the actual sounds of Hubble Bubble, which were recorded in the Fluids Lab at Exeter University. These sounds are woven into a graphic musical evocation of bubble flow, where a sequence of small short-lived sound events come and go, underpinned by an inexorably flowing rhythm.

The video explores the otherworldly quality of the sculpture and emphasises the physical similarities of its shape and parts within it, with objects found in space. I make several references throughout to one of my favourite films, Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey" - for instance, I include a dark floating monolithic shape.