cosmolog

Paul Bennuns Eyeball

Funny how the cutting edge of technology can look like something dug up from the dust of an archive. Paul Bennun shot this on his new mobile phone.

The soundtrack is a meteor storm recorded at the same time, 48.25 MHz.

Click on the image to play the movie.

night vision

"what's he building in there ? "

A cube, a cone, a sphere.

The shed, the tower, the dish.

I've been living in the shed, for three weeks now, from the sub zero nights of early June to the transient mid summer heat wave and back again. Once more it's cold, the wind from the north.

A lot of people don't realise that there is a connection, that the dish actually does pick up a signal, that the shed is not simply a random accumulation of wood and nails, but a room in which the signal is received, converted to sound and line, drawn by a mechanical hand.

How they don't realise, I don't know. Left unattended I turn the sound up to maximum volume, tone controls rolled to their peak. Shutting the door, it becomes a giant speaker box, walls vibrating, a rocket shed, roaring cosmic surf.

Look through the window and you'll see the chart recorder inscribing its endless line, the oscilloscope trace, drawings, books, coal, pine cones, a broom, chairs, table . . . . "what's he building in there ?!"

The signal passes from the spiral antenna on the dish, down meters of coax,into the receiver and out to the sound system. I'm on my second pair of speakers and amplifier. The full frequency noise of the universe destroyed the originals within days. The audio signal is accompanied by the rattling pen of the chart recorder, like a spirit hand from the other side.

Having made the ground breaking discovery that the sun, at 25.55 MHz, is at maximum strength during the middle of the day, through observing the rise and fall of the signal trace, I started to loop the chart paper.

Endless gyres, overwriting, obliterating, abnihilating any pretence of analysis, the chart recorder is transformed into an automatic drawing machine, the universe the invisible hand.

I experiment with different techniques; speed of rotation, nib, colour, signal and duration. Slowly a collection of drawings grows.

The days have a rhythm, an ebb and flow. The early morning flurry of dog walkers and runners, the mid morning lull, lunchtime rush hour, sleepy afternoon and the early evening peak. At night it's peaceful, save the occasional interuption, nocturnal ramblers looking for a tower to climb, a sleeper to wake.

Time passes, people come and go. I live in the shed, in The Centre of the Universe.

panoramic

Two panoramic movies can be found at http://www.seeoxford.com/centreoftheuniverse/default.htm, courtesy of Karl Harrison.

between radio and optical

. . . infrared . . .

9 more views of The Centre of the Universe

evening shadow

click on image to play

statutory fast cloud film

click on image to play

purple night

circumnavigation of a point in space

Marc Thomas suggested making an animation such as this . . .

click on image to play . . .

rotation around a star on a spinning planet

click on images to play . . . requires QuickTime 6+

7am shadow

shed

10 views of The Centre of the Universe

lucky 3 #2

At the third roll of the dice . . . . . .

unlucky 2

And for the second time . . . a brief flowering before entropy kicked in double quick. No whirlybird rescue today as the pyramid of steel bent and buckled beneath the delicate flower of a dish.

3rd time will work. 3rd time will work. 3rd time will work.

Despite the disappointment I refuse to see this as failure. To see the alignment of the dish, the tower and the shed is rather wonderful, a weird version of the platonic solids.