Get curated editors’ picks, peeks behind the scenes, film recommendations and more.
Warning: this film features rapidly flashing images that can be distressing to photosensitive viewers.
The London-based artist Markos R Kay works at the intersection of digital art and science, building bridges between the sometimes esoteric work of scientists and the public. For his piece Quantum Fluctuations: Experiments in Flux (2016), Kay set out to visually express a quantum interaction – a phenomenon that’s notoriously unobservable. First, Kay crafted a scientifically informed visual style, incorporating influences ranging from the abstract expressionists to Richard Feynman. Kay then created ‘moving paintings’ from these visuals using computer software intended to mimic the supercomputers that simulate particle collisions at the Large Hadron Collider near Geneva. The sequence of events visualised in this excerpt from Quantum Fluctuations is as follows:
There’s an idiosyncratic beauty to the resulting imagery and an inherent tension in the work, which melds careful planning with spontaneity, and offers an abstract peek into the unseeable. For the best experience, we recommend watching with your video player at the 4K setting. You can view Quantum Fluctuations in full at Sedition.
Director: Markos R Kay
video
Neuroscience
This intricate map of a fruit fly brain could signal a revolution in neuroscience
2 minutes
video
Information and communication
Coverage of the ‘balloon boy’ hoax forms a withering indictment of for-profit news
17 minutes
video
Meaning and the good life
Wander through the English countryside with two teens trying to make sense of the world
10 minutes
video
Computing and artificial intelligence
The ‘cloud’ requires heaps of energy to stay aloft. Could synthetic DNA be the answer?
12 minutes
video
Biology
Brilliant dots of colour form exquisite patterns in this close-up of butterfly wings
3 minutes
video
Genetics
Why it took a century to work out that humans interbred with Neanderthals
22 minutes
video
Personality
A ‘dumpster archeologist’ reconstructs strangers’ stories via what they’ve discarded
14 minutes
video
Evolution
How – and how not – to think about the role randomness plays in evolution
60 minutes
video
Meaning and the good life
A Japanese religious community makes an unlikely home in the mountains of Colorado
9 minutes