Tuning Interference: Dark Matter Radio

Aura Satz

Inspired by recent experiments such as the ADMX axion haloscope experiment, described as “a radio that looks for a radio station, but we don’t know its frequency" - the piece invites the audience to physically interact with the artwork, tuning to different frequencies and generating interference patterns in their mind through their physical location in relation to the structure. Satz has collaborated with Malcolm Fairbairn (King's College London), David Marsh (Goettingen University) and David Ronan to create this 10-channel sound installation based on scientific simulations of dark matter's speed and density. Satz has reproduced an accompanying print of the astronomer Vera Rubin, who in the 1970s was the first scientist to provide irrefutable evidence that dark matter exists.

Original image of Vera Rubin, reproduced courtesy of Department of Terrestrial Magnetism, Carnegie Institution for Science.