Presenters:   Elio Caccavale   Dawn Danby   Olaf Dreyer   Juan Geuer   Rob Godman   John Hatch   Kenneth A. Huff   Mantissa   Miroslav Lovric   Sally McKay   Eric Raymond   S. David Rosner   Mariano Sardón   Frederic P. Schuller   Krister Shalm   Lydia Sharman &   Stephen Morris   Donald Spector   Joseph Thywissen   Marion Tränkle   Koala Yip Symposium The Trouble with Oscillation by Sally McKay http://www.sallymckay.ca In this pseudo-science fictional performance, a tourist takes an artificially induced neurological vacation to the edges of big science and reports back, touching on topics such as the oscillation of neutrinos, CP violation, free will as applied to particles, atom bombs, emergent patterns, and the mind/body split. Tourist Sally McKay -- along with collaborators Rebecca Diederichs, Gordon Hicks and Corinna Ghaznavi -- was given a tour of the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory, a giant ball of heavy water buried 2km underground. A significant discovery had just be made at SNO: neutrinos -- tiny particles that pass nearly unimpeded through matter -- oscillate in transit, meaning that they switch between three states. This revelation proved that neutrinos must actually have a tiny amount of mass, which may account for a portion of the missing dark matter in the universe. In search for a theory of everything, physicists embrace extreme levels of abstraction. Without the expertise of advanced mathematics, laypersons must attempt to conceive their theories using visualizations and thought experiments. How do we construct our perceptions of existence in a manner that can be culturally shared? Science provides one model, and art provides another. This lecture/performance provides an accessible, tangential means of comprehension. The Trouble with Oscillation is a satellite to the group show, Neutrinos They are Very Small, coming soon to the Art Gallery of Sudbury and the Agnes Etherington Art Centre in Kingston. Sally McKay is grateful to the Ontario Arts Council for their support. Biography: Sally McKay is an artist and writer. Her work in performance, video, and web-based digital art inhabits the boundaries between genres and practices. She has shown in many venues such as: the Dorottya Gallery in Budapest, Digifest, The Art Gallery of Ontario, Fly Gallery, The Wexner Centre in Ohio, Postmasters Gallery in New York, Samplesize, and Year Zero One.   Page Top Copyright © 2004 Subtle Technologies Festival