Arts and Science residency at the Musée en plein air du Sart Tilman
Following a call for projects launched in June 2023 by the Musée en plein air in collaboration with Réjouisciences, the artist Claire Williams has been selected to undertake an Arts and Sciences residency in collaboration with scientists from the University of Liège. The artist will be in residence at the Sart Tilman from 17 October to 19 December 2023. A public presentation of the research and results of the residency will take place on Tuesday 19 December.
> TRANSVISIBLES : presentation of Claire Williams’ residency results – 19/12
The project: Fabricating the invisible
“To see at the frontier of the visible, what we don’t yet know, modern science often has to observe the discrete objects that surround the object of study in search of clues, and then calculate, analyse, model and debate. We have had to expand our human perceptions by making devices, instruments and machines, or by training ourselves to amplify some of our senses. In order to see (it is above all sight that takes precedence in Western societies) what is beyond our perception, from the nearest to the furthest away.
Failing to see, scientists sometimes resort to conceptualising theories using mathematical languages to fill in and therefore ‘imagine’ physical models that we do not yet know. So it’s the mind that makes real what escapes us. But what about other materials that we can’t see with an instrument, that don’t fit into the immaculate environment of the laboratory, that are too unstable to be instrumentalised by our techniques?
If we think about what our material culture consists of, other categories emerge that do not seem to be retained. We can think of dreams, the psyche, the soul, visual hallucinations, myths, imagination, emotions, memory, magic… These “materialities”, which always seem to operate with the principles of disappearance, dissipation, dissolution, less solid, less stable, less palpable, less invasive, more discreet and permeable to their environment, nevertheless constitute the structures of our world.
Yet these ephemeral materialities seem to be omitted from the ways in which we consider our history of the material sciences, even though they seem imperative and combat the productivist desires of the immortal materials we leave behind.
With a feminist perspective, this research will question researchers on the ways in which they observe invisible artefacts and materials in their disciplines, and decipher and speculate on their functions and fabrications that call upon these other materialities of the invisible.
In collaboration with the CESAM research unit (Complex and Entangled Systems from Atoms to Materials) and the CESAM research department (UR) in nanosciences and nanotechnologies at the University of Liège, with the complicity of Prof. Alejandro SILHANEK (EPNM) and Prof. Duy NGUYEN (SPIN), we will create a work on a nanoscopic scale, at the frontier of the visible and the invisible, lithographed with a text, code or drawing at the end of the residency”. – Claire Williams
About the artist
The works of Claire Williams (1986, Abu Dhabi) take the form of woven antennae, plasma-filled glass sculptures and devices that capture the invisible. Data from radio telescopes is materialised in knitted stitches, sound vibrations or pulsating light. She sculpts and fashions electronic sculptures to make visible electromagnetic movements ranging from the cosmos to our magnetosphere, from radio waves passing through our terrestrial environment to those emanating from our bodies. She is currently working on an exploration of the ether, at the crossroads of the occult and experimental sciences. She explores our relationship with the world of the invisible by reactivating the abandoned avenues explored by certain scientists and researchers in the mid-19th century.
Claire Williams is a French artist who holds a Master’s degree in Textile Design from ENSAV La Cambre and a diploma from Le Fresnoy studio nationale des arts contemporains. Her work has been exhibited or performed in festivals and group exhibitions including Bozar (Be), Le Fresnoy (FR), Centre Wallonie Bruxelles à Paris (FR), Scopitione (FR), La friche de belle de mai (FR), Biennale Chroniques (FR), Ososphère (FR), Théâtros del Canal (ES), Interstices (FR), Trésor (DE), Red Room (TWN), Moulins Paillards (FR), Tamat (BE), Transnumériques (BE), Digital Encounters (UK), Festival voix de femmes (BE), Hangar (ES), Halles Saint Géry (BE), Le Signe (FR), Site St Sauveur (FR) and more. The artist has also presented solo exhibitions at Le Vecteur (BE), La Manufacture (FR), Constant (BE) and Centro Cultural Puerta de Castilla (ES). She also gives workshops on electronic textiles as part of an open source practice, and presents her research on the place of women in their contributions to experimental science at festivals, museums and cultural organisations. She also teaches at art colleges.
The artist’s website: http://www.xxx-clairewilliams-xxx.com
Public presentation on 19 December 2023
Programme and information here: https://www.museepla.uliege.be/en/claire-williams-residency-results/
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The Arts and Sciences residency is an initiative of the Musée en plein air and the fruit of a collaboration with Réjouisciences, as part of the Pôle muséal et culturel projects. With the support of the Fédération
Wallonie-Bruxelles.
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Photo: © Claire Williams