Chemical energy - dedicated to the people of Beirut

Chemical energy is released during reactions in the form of heat and light.

Chemical reactions can cause devastating explosions. I dedicate this work to the people of of Beirut, in remembrance of the 4 august 2020 disaster.

Inspiration

Physical energy is conceptual - nobody ever saw, felt or heard a single “Joule” of energy. Many appearances of physical energy do have a real world equivalent, though. That is, you can sense them in many different ways. Great heat burns your skin. Bright light makes you wink you eyes, to name a few. Since Albert Einstein we know that the weight of mass is energy as well. And since Claude Shannon mathematically defined information, we became to expect that this is just energy in a different form all together. Or is information the equivalent of energy? Is it just information, that defines peoples, the earth and the universe?

These thoughts on energy inspired me to make a series of artworks. Each one envisioning one of the appearances of energy as we think we know it. Their physical forms are similar and seem round volumes, with changing colors. They were build from many lines; circular waves, interfering with each other and together moulding to the fundamental unit of energy.

Extremely high definition

The original file has an extremely high definition of 56 million pixels. This will enable you to view all details and the hundreds of lines and interference patterns (moire) in the artwork.

Technical realisation

The artwork is a computer generated spirograph and consists of over 200 separate colored spirographic lines.