Ring around the Ring

Snowflake Detector & X-Ray film recording Lathe

Fermilab

Fermilab Art Gallery

To detect snowflakes falling on wires and record the sound on X-Ray film.

This is an experiment and with experiments sometimes things work and sometimes not. The important thing is that I learned from the experiment and will continue to do so.

The origin of the concept occurred in December 0f 1973 during a trip to Canada. At Grand Forks, No. Dakota I was struck by the silence and flat landscape in all four directions. I was also struck by many snowflakes. My first thought was wouldn’t it be interesting to stretch a wire ½ mile and record the sound of snowflakes hitting it. Approximately 45 years later the concept has been realized and well not fully developed it is more of a reality today.

The snowflake detector system is a collection of reasonably accessible material, scrap or repurposed items and recycled elements. The embedded environmental storyline may be a bit clearer now.

The irrationality of it all may be hinted at by the √5 affixed to base of the structure. Concealed from view is a ZOOM H4N Recorder along with a more sensitive microphone. The snowflakes striking the tensioned detector wires will be recorded and hopefully it’s less than irrational.

Along with the detector I fabricated a X-Ray Film Record Lathe to convert the snowflake recording and transfer it to a very fragile media. This device was inspired by the story of musicians, engineers recording jazz and rock music on X-Ray film and smuggling it into the Soviet Union during the Cold War. The music was referred to as Bone Jazz or Bone Music for obvious reasons.

It has been said of my work that it is ephemeral. Because of the bones shown in the x-ray films I would suggest it’s also effemoral as well a humorous.

The overarching point of it all is not only our fragility on this planet but that of the planet itself. We are exposed and vulnerable. Our impact upon Mother Earth should be that of a snowflake striking a wire yet it is diametrically opposed as of today.There may be another aspect to this experiment. To detect the sound of a snowflake striking a wire and then record it through a series of other methods and devices may strike you as difficult or perhaps impossible. Fermilab’s scientific work is several orders of magnitude more difficult yet it demonstrably shows measurable results and a daily commitment to excellence.

.004 Dia. High tensile strength detector wire for an experiment at Fermilab.
Recycled Cotton Candy Machine housing
Repurposed music boxes as wire tensioning devices only. The tune is, “Castles in the Sky”.
Aluminum Resonating Cone Spinning. Spun by Derek Plant of Fermilab.
Fish hooks. Fishing for a compliment here.
Acrylic tubing (recycled).
Stainless Steel Strip Skeletons
√5 recycled from the St. Charles Public Library sculpture project “Read Them Like a Book”.
A beaver pelt…from Canada.
An Extreme Bafflement System

Materials for the X-Ray Film Record Lathe

1959 RCA phonograph turntable. Repurposed.
New Linear Motion Stepper Motor System.
New Arduino programmable controller.
Stepper Motor Program by Lee Bernard.
(2)- Amplifiers.
(2)- Micro Speakers.
Plexiglas Speaker Housing.
(2)-Fabricated Speaker Cones. Repurposed San Pelligrino Orangaid soda can.
Record cutting needle. Repurposed compass point. See the direction I’m heading?
Cutting Edge Technology articulated tone arm with counterbalance weights. Repurposed straight razor blade.
9” diameter X-Ray Film Disc with grooves sans snowflake sounds.
Felt turntable platen disc.
The internal light cylinder consisting of the following materials…

Fetal Stethoscope with natural rubber surgical tubing attached. Please note there are no ear buds to the stethoscope. The tubing merely exits the cylinder at the bottom as this message may be falling on deaf ears anyway.
A military aviation chart of the airspace above a portion of Vietnam. Areas on the chart indicate Area Uninhabitable as a result of Agent Orange.
A copy of Page 293 from James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake. A side page notation states…Uteralterance or the Interplay of Bones in the Womb & The Vortex. Spring of Sprung Verse. The Vertex. Given that it’s -12º F this afternoon, most appropriate.
Snowflake shapes punch out of golden mylar detector film given to me by Robyn Plant a physicist at Fermilab who used this material in an experiment.
A magic lantern slide of embryonic formation. There are two or more ways of looking at this element in the piece. It may suggest the metaphysical, something other than The Machine. It may also suggest the effects upon humankind as a result of our collective unkindness as described by our Epigentic Inheritance. Further, it may just be A Womb with a View.
Two Sacajawea dollars are used as the counterweights for the cutting head system. That must be worth something.