Site-specific installation, including: neon 3500K, one-way mirror, fine white sand, elevated structure. Dimension variable.

Description

Albert Einstein conceived many thought experiments which were consequently used as vital tools to present and explain the concepts of his theoretical physics. In his 1916 book 'Relativity: The Special and General Theory,' he first presented a diagram to illustrate the Relativity of Simultaneity using a train, an embankment, and two flashes of light.

The Laboratory for Experimental (Meta) physics (Room 1B) is a spatial sketch of the forementioned thought experiment, labelled with the title 'Fig.1' over the entrance. Hand-crafted neon signs levitate in thin air in the middle of the room illustrating the train section of the 1916 printed version of the diagram to scale, faithfully replicating even the letter-pressed font of the time. With a colour temperature of 3500K, the light washes over the room with a faint sunlit glow. The notations for 'Embankment', point 'A', point 'B' and the observer 'M', however, stay fixed on the raised platform, inverted and partly obscured from view, a result of the spatial shift. Standing on the embankment, the viewer is situated in the observer's position, finding their observation entangled within their frame of reference.

The one-way mirror and the sand covering the floor are a callback to the second room of Phạm Minh Hiếu’s Here & Now exhibition in 2014. What was previously just a small mound of sand presented on a lit pedestal, has now accumulated into a bed of sediment. The train in the diagram is now able to travel into another dimension, suggested by the negative space to the right side of the one-way mirror. Within the confinement of a laboratory, meditation becomes the method to unravel the fabric of reality.

Source: Galerie Quynh.