Dark Matters
Original Drawing of The Angel of the Apocalypse April 2011
Fermilab
|Fermilab's Art Gallery & Ramsey Auditorium
I believe the strong metaphoric thread stitches these dissimilar and disparate materials together is Light. My understanding of the way in which the E760 detector operated was in absolute darkness. The light was the charm and anti-charm quarks. What Messiaen accomplished with his “Quartet” and the performance of it in German POW Camp, Stalag VIII A, Gorlitz Germany was to bring the light of the music into the absolute darkness of the prison camp. The lead crystal of the detector and the first movement of the Quartet are linked as well by material. First Movement: Crystal Liturgy Liturgie de cristal.
The imprisoned musicians performed the piece on January 15th, 1941 for a small audience of less than 300 including German Army Officers, guards, and prisoners. It was light being brought into absolute darkness.
According to the book, For the End of Time: The Story of the Messiaen Quartet by Rebecca Rischin…
“Drawing on Gregorian plainchant church modes and ancient Greek and Hindu rhythms he interwove Christian symbolism with “sound-color” and transcriptions of birdsong, creating an eclectic musical language that was uniquely his, an intricate puzzle of seemingly disparate parts that miraculously make musical sense.”
I will suggest that my work “Dark Matters” has a similar aesthetic and creative use of disparate materials to fashion an intricate puzzle.
© J. Jenkins 2018
- Quartet for the End of Time by Olivier Messiaen.
- Four professional musicians performing the Quartet on stage. The instrumentation is Violin, Cello, Clarinet in Bb, Piano.
- Ramsey Auditorium Stage.
- A lead crystal block originally part of a calorimeter Fermilab experiment E760 & E835. Anti-Proton Source to study Charm-anti-charm quark pair (called Charmonium).
- A sculptural figure approximately 12’ high with the lead crystal block incorporated into the figure. This figure is representative of the Angel of the Apocalypse. The Angel appears in the Quartet and announces “Il n’y aura plus de Temps”, There is no more
- Several canopy sections from F16 Fighter Jets, no longer recognizable as such. The sections will be incorporated throughout the base of the figure.
- 2 sections of black granite used as the base for the sculpture. The color of course is “Absolute Black”
- Stainless steel strip skeletons produced in a manufacturing facility providing parts for the most recent nuclear submarine design are used as wing structures.
- A copy of a page from Enrico Fermi’s calculations leading to the development of the atomic bomb has been shredded and scattered onto a F16 Canopy section.
- Einstein’s famous equation including gamma is distributed about.
- A block of Pb is part of a supporting system. The word Acedia has been stamped into it. I was lead to do it overcoming a feeling of spiritual torpor.
- The three neutrinos are symbolically incorporated.
- A large circular mirror from a Fermilab experiment E781 has been incorporated as the face and or head of the angel. You may see a little bit of yourself in it.
- A formed piece of copper buss from the Tevatron has been included as the mouth of the angel.
- A prism is an appropriate nose for the angel as rainbows are said to be reflected in the face.