The British Science Festival and Culture Liverpool will be showing ‘Geist’ by This is Loop (artists Harriet Lumby and Alan Hayes) in the centre of Liverpool at Liverpool ONE from the 10 – 14 September.
As part of the celebration of the scientific culture and innovation taking place across the Liverpool City Region, they’re turning the spotlight on one of the most mysterious building blocks of our universe – neutrinos.
Also known as ‘ghost-particles’, neutrinos are the most abundant massive particles in the universe and are extremely hard to detect. One of the many mysteries surrounding neutrinos is that the three different types of neutrinos can change into each other.
Geist is a large-scale sculpture which offers a window into a figment of reflection and light, created by a mirror illusion and showing a suspended illuminated orb. The illusion is interactive; only by the proximity and movement of the audience, does the suspended particle of light come to life. Individually addressable LED modules start flickering and glimmering in the presence of people.
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The public are the cause of the artwork’s existence, their interactions creating a response from the artwork; a version of the ‘hide and seek’ played out in a neutrino detector where only an interaction with an atom reveals the neutrino.
Geist includes real data from neutrino experiments in collaboration with the UK’s Science and Facilities Technology Council (STFC). STFC have major research and innovation campuses across the UK, including at Daresbury in the Liverpool City Region.
To delve deeper into the world of particle physics, some of the world’s leading particle physicists will discuss how we are starting to understand more about the fundamental building blocks of the universe.
Join, Graziano Venanzoni (University of Liverpool), Saskia Charity (University of Liverpool), Mark Thomson (CERN) and Jocelyn Monroe (University of Oxford) to find out about fascinating particle physics projects including the Muon g-2 experiment, the Darkside-20k experiment, and the Large Hadron Collider.
Book free tickets and learn more through the British Science Association website here.
Researchers from the Department of Physics (University of Liverpool) will also showcase real particle detectors, demonstrate how they work and explain how experiments are designed.
People can also join an interactive virtual tour of Boulby Underground Laboratory in Yorkshire, where scientists are searching for the elusive ‘dark matter’ that makes up most of the mass of the universe.
Claire McColgan CBE, Liverpool’s director of culture and associate director of Culture for Liverpool City Region, said: “We are delighted that Liverpool is hosting this amazing crossover of science and culture in the heart of the city, giving people a rare chance to see a hidden but vital part of our universe.
“This project is such an innovative and artful way to make science accessible. We are looking forward to seeing how it sparks intrigue among our many visitors and residents and highlights some of the brilliant innovation happening in the city.”
