Artist Phillip Stearns’ A Chandelier For One of Many Possible Endings is a custom light fixture containing 92 elements, each connected to a Geiger counter and each representing an electron in a Uranium atom. They light up in response to radiation, creating a haunting pattern.
According to the artist:
Lights flash in response to the Geiger counters detecting high energy particles of radioactivity from sources both terrestrial and cosmic. Normal levels of environmental radioactivity cause the instillation to flicker randomly. A source of contamination great enough to cause the entire chandelier to remain solidly lit would be fatal to any living thing in the room.
It’s on display at Buffalo, NY’s Burchfield Penney Art Center through next month. The museum notes Stearns’ sobering inspiration was the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in March 2011.
Via Laughing Squid
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