Tilen Sepič: Cosmic rain | Light-sound installation | 22.7.─30.9.2022 | Meduza Gallery Koper | Opening: Friday, 22 July 2022, 7 pm
The light-sound installation entitled COSMIC RAIN by TILEN SEPIČ discusses and materialises muons, particles undetectable by man. Muons are high-energy elementary particles that are created in the upper layers of the atmosphere upon the collision of cosmic rays from outer space. They transverse through our bodies, great natural masses, and human infrastructure at any moment, while they mostly decay in the depths of the Earth.
The exhibition in the Meduza Gallery in Koper is composed of five detector-signalling units stretched across the room and powered by an electrified steel net. Each individual element contains a scintillator detector, made according to plans of a free-access and open-source muon detector Cosmic Watch. When a muon passes through the scintillator, a weak light pulse is generated, which the silicon photomultiplier amplifies and converts into an electrical signal. The built-in microcontroller detects the signal, which triggers a strong flash of light and the impact of the electromagnetic actuator against the grid, which produces the sound of a blow on the string.
The material representation of cosmic particles in the form of light and sound stimuli allows the viewer to experience the sensory physical and cosmic events that are all around us but are inaccessible to our senses. Working with a functionalist and engineering-precise artistic gesture in space merely stretches the detector and signal grid, exposing the mass of constant encounters and collisions of muons, which are already present in every gallery space as an invisible cosmic constant of white and black cubes “separated from the world”.
TILEN SEPIČ (1984) is a multidisciplinary artist and designer working in the field of new media, the art of light, design of lighting objects, and projection of light audiovisual installations. In his work, he supports the open source and DIY culture. With his light-sound kinetic installations he regularly participates at light festivals and exhibitions at home and abroad: Vinterljus Festival of Lights (Linkoping, Sweden, 2019), IZIS (Portorož, 2019), Ventura Future (Italy, 2019), Responsive 2019 (Canada, 2019), Interference Tunis Light Art Project (Tunis, 2018), Design without borders (Budapest, 2018), Center za kreativnost (Maribor, 2018), Collumina Light Art Project, and EVI Lichtungen Light Festival (Köln and Hildesheim, Germany, 2018), Visualia (Pula, Croatia, 2017), Bella Skyway (Poland, 2015, 2016), Lumina Festival of Light (Portugal, 2013, 2015, 2016), Svetlobna gverila (2013, 2014, 2019, 2021), Pixxelpoint (2020), and MFRU (2020, 2021).
Circuit manufacturing and programming: Luka Frelih, Staš Vrenko, Brane Ždralo
Artistic guidance and text: Maja Burja
Technical help: Luka Bernetič, Valter Udovičić
Acknowledgement: Jožef Stefan Institute (Prof Dr Peter Križan, Dr Andrej Gorišek), Dadamachines (Johannes Lohbihler), Miro Križman
Production: Ljudmila Arts and Science Laboratory
Co-production in the Meduza Gallery: PiNA cultural and educational society
The project was developed within konS – a platform for contemporary investigative art, while the installation is co-financed by the Creative Europe programme within the EASTN-DC project.
