Synchrotron Residency
Provided by
RMIT // School of Creative Media
Run since 2007
Website: henschke.anat.org.au
The Australian Synchrotron, opened in 2007, houses a 3GeV third-generation circular synchrotron that accelerates electrons to almost the speed of light. As the electrons are deflected through magnetic fields they create narrow beams of extremely bright light, which is channelled down beamlines to experimental workstations where it is used for research. Synchrotron light is advancing research and development in fields as diverse as the biosciences, medicine, the environmental sciences, agriculture, minerals exploration, engineering, forensics and the development of advance materials.
Synchrotron radiation is in theory ‘tuneable’ to a wide range of energy frequencies enabling us to ‘see’ an object in an extremely wide range of wavelengths. With a range of material analysis and mapping techniques, a vast amount of visual data about an object can be obtained, revealing its many different properties. During his residency, Chris Henschke will investigate an everyday object using the synchrotron’s beamlines to analyse the object using various methods and resolutions in the range from the macroscopic or everyday scale to the micron scale (one millionth of a metre). The resultant data will be combined to create a series of images, animations, sounds and sculptural forms.