Visual Art Practice
Things that can happen in a vacuum
16mm film and video, 6.5 minutes
School of Physics, Trinity Colllege Dublin, 2011
Documentation of a makeshift incandescent light bulb
The tungsten filament is cleaned and fashioning into a coil. The oxygen is evacuated from the jar with a vacuum pump and liquid Nitrogen. Slowly an electrical current is passed through the tungsten. Darkness is changed into something else. The filament burns dark orange. The objects collected have become a source of light. It burns brighter and brighter, all the time more electricity. The methods of keeping oxygen out are tested and in the sixth minute the tungsten flares brighter still and finally blows. Darkness again, but changed
Thank you the School of Physics, Trinity College Dublin, the Science Gallery, Moira Tierney, Niamh Burke-Kennedy and the Arts Council for their support through a bursary award. Image courtesy of Niamh Burke-Kennedy
