Black (W)hole (2013) is an installation that I initiated in 2011 with Nico Yunes, a gravitational wave physicist and my MSU colleague. I am the lead visual artist and Yunes is the lead scientist. The piece was created for Montana State University’s Celebrating Einstein event, that involved physicists from Princeton, Dartmouth, University of Maryland and Montana State University. The work uses data visualization of an extreme mass ratio inspiral (EMRI) with the aural data of gravitational wave frequencies in an immersive work of artscience. It engages mind and body in both historical and current gravitational wave astronomy, encompassing our current, 21st century level of understanding of the universe.

The viewer enters the space and stands on the edge of a black hole accretion disk, which swirls into a supermassive black hole in Newtonian trajectories. The Black Hole animation (projected on the floor, created by Christopher O’Leary) zooms in to the edge of the black hole as a much smaller one is captured and begins to spin around the larger one. The sounds that gravitational waves produce, sonified into megahertz and integrated into the ambient soundtrack (composed by Jason Bolte) surround the viewer. Transmutations is a stop-motion animation of my paintings, photographed as I made them in the studio by Cindy Stillwell, who also did the film editing. The experimental film plays in a continuous loop that to moves between the references to Einstein’s equations scrawled on the blackboard behind his desk at Princeton and star fields of chalk dust. His mathematical equations always shapeshift and return to the mystery of the night sky. The solutions to these equations predicted the existence of black holes almost one hundred years ago. Einstein published the Theory of Relativity in 1916.

Through sensory engagement that involves the ‘whole person’, The Einstein Collective’s aim is to create an imaginal realm in which the viewer can experience a cosmic object that the physical senses could never encounter. The project was supported by a NASA Educational Enhancement grant, as well as by Montana State University, with the aim of creating an immersive, experiential work of black hole science.

Transmutations (experimental film created by Cindy Stillwell, using Mast paintings): this film of morphing images plays in a continuous loop and surrounds the viewer, furthering the immersive experience. The morphing equations move from star fields to chalk dust, referencing Einstein equations scrawled in chalk on the blackboard behind his desk at Princeton, the solutions of which predicted the existence of black holes almost one hundred years ago. Einstein published the Theory of Relativity in 1916. 

Through somatic engagement that involves the ‘whole person’, The Einstein Collective’s aim is to create a space in which the viewer can imagine and ponder his/her origin in the cosmos.The Einstein Collective is made up of artists and scientists that include: Sara Mast, lead visual artist; Jessica Jellison, architect; Christopher O’Leary, animator and visual artist; Cindy Stillwell, filmmaker; Jason Bolte, composer/sound artist; Charles Kankelborg, solar physicist; Nico Yunes, astrophysicist; Joey Shapiro Key, astrophysicist.