|
|
Peter McLeish - Science Art
Collaborations
Touring Australia August 2010
Peter McLeish will show his films about
mysterious newly discovered luminous emissions, high in the earth’s
atmosphere and his film on the Polar regions.
Peter McLeish is a Canadian born international painter/multi-media
artist/filmmaker. Since the late 1990's, Peter has been developing
artworks, films and research on science based themes which have been
exhibited and screened in many counties including Australia, Hungary,
Czech Republic, the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada,
Argentina, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Denmark, Germany and Italy.
During the past two years, his recent work & films had been presented in
major screenings and/or exhibits in many museums/centres such as the the
Australian Museum in Sydney- Australia, Queensland Museum South
Bank-Brisbane-Australia, the South Australian Museum in
Adelaide-Australia, the Otago Museum in Dunedin-New Zealand, the
Carnegie Science Center in Pittsburgh-United States, the TELUS World of
Science-Calgary in Calgary-Canada, Canada South Science City in
Windsor-Canada, Geological Museum-Natural History Museum of Denmark in
Copenhagen-Denmark, Planetarium Hamburg in Hamburg-Germany, Nikolaj
Copenhagen Contemporary Art Center in Copenhagen-Denmark, Art Centre
Silkeborg Bad in Silkeborg-Denmark. Peter had received over twenty
various types of grants, awards and/or support from different branches
of the Canadian and Quebec Governments between-1991 to 2010.
Since 2001, Peter has been involved in a collaboration based on Red
Sprites with American scientist Walter A. Lyons (2005 President of the
American Meteorological Society, President 2007-08 United States
National Council of Industrial Meteorologists and current President of
FMA Research Inc.). Red sprites are upper atmospheric optical phenomenon
(Transient Luminous Events) associated with thunderstorms that have
recently been only documented using low level television. This
collaboration eventually led to Walter A. Lyons receiving a Unites
States National Science Foundation grant regarding the collaboration and
subsequent creation of Lyons’s DVD titled The Hundred Year Hunt for the
Red Sprite and interactive website. Peter created the artwork in the The
Hundred Year Hunt for the Red Sprite as well as his companion-six minute
film titled Lightning’s Angels. Since 2002, both films have been
presented at many major International science symposiums, conferences,
media festivals, science film festivals, science & art museums/centres
and planetariums all over the world.
Peter’s continued research subsequently led him to an additional
collaboration with Dr. Colin Price from the Department of Geophysics and
Planetary Science, Tel Aviv University who was working on sprite
research within the MEIDEX -Mediterranean Israeli Dust Experiment
mission from a ground station with the ill-fated crew of the NASA Space
Shuttle Columbia in 2003. During the course of the MEIDEX mission, was
the first discovery of TIGER (Transient Ionospheric Glow Emission in
Red) taken by the Columbia space shuttle crew in 2003. The camera on
Columbia was operated by Ilan Ramon, Israel's first astronaut. The main
goal of the experiment was to study dust storms and how they affect the
radiative properties of the atmosphere. Ilan Ramon, observed strange
lightning like flashes over the ocean near Madagascar and he
photographed these lights. These images were transmitted to the ground
and later analyzed. When the MEIDEX scientific team analyzed the data,
they realized one very strange point right at the beginning.... there
was no thunderstorm activity anywhere nearby! Lightning without a storm!
No one knows what caused TIGER. Was TIGER a new type of phenomenon? It
does not appear to be related to Red Sprites.
Transient Luminous Events-TLE is a short-lived electrical phenomenon
that occurs above storm clouds. In addition to Red Sprites there are
three recent types of TLE's which are Trolls, Gnomes and Pixies.
Trolls (for Transient Red Optical Luminous Lineament) occur after an
especially strong sprite, down in the lowest tendrils near the cloud
tops. Early recordings showed them as red spots with faint red tails,
rising much like blue jets. Faster cameras show trolls to be a rapid
series of events. Each event starts with a red glow that forms in a
sprite tendril, then "drains" downward. Each following event starts
higher, so that the series looks like an upward blur in slower videos.
This is a typical pattern in science: looking at the same old thing with
better instruments always reveals something new and unexpected.
Gnomes are small, very brief white spikes of light that point upward
from the top of a large thundercloud's anvil top, specifically the
"overshoot dome" caused as strong updrafts push rising moist air
slightly above the anvil. They appear about 150 meters wide and about a
kilometre high, and they last a few microseconds.
Pixies are so small that they appear as points, making them less than
100 m across. In the video that first documented them they appear
scattered across the overshoot dome, flashing seemingly at random.
Pixies and gnomes appear to be a pure white colour, like ordinary
lightning, and they do not accompany lightning strokes.
Peter is currently at the start of a collaboration and cooperation with
Dr.Takahashi from the Department of Geophysics at Tohoku University-who
has been observing TLEs from space with ISUAL (Imager of Sprites and
Upper Atmospheric Lightnings) on board FORMOSAT-2 satellite since
2004.Peter also intends to begin collaboration and cooperation with the
National Space Institute in Denmark.
During Peter's current visit he will exchange information about TLE's
with the Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing-Swinburne University
of Technology in Hawthorn, Victoria.
Peter believes it is important to promote unity, between art and science
in order to create a better understanding of the natural world and the
cosmos.
Peter will have film presentations at the the following venues in
Australia:
- August 26th-School of
Physics-University of Western Australia, Perth
- August 26th-Scitech, Perth
- August 24th-Creative Industries
Faculty-Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane
- August 23rd-School of English,
Media Studies & Art History-University of Queensland, Brisbane
- August 22nd-Sir Thomas Brisbane
Planetarium, Brisbane
- August 20th-Centre for
Astrophysics and Supercomputing-Swinburne University of Technology,
Hawthorn
- August 17th-RiAus/The Royal
Institution of Australia, Adelaide
- August 13th-School of Mathematical
& Physical Sciences-University of Newcastle, Newcastle
- August 12th-School of
Physics-University of Sydney, Sydney
- August 11th-Sydney College of
Arts-University of Sydney, Sydney
- August 5th-16th-a residency by the
Sydney College of Arts-University of Sydney, Sydney
- August 12th-Radio interview with
Carol Duncan of ABC Radio Newcastle
- August 17th-Radio interview with
Carole Whitelock on ABC 891 afternoon show. Adelaide
- August 17th- Newspaper article
–The Advertiser: Sprites, trolls, gnomes and pixies - fairytale
figures of the night sky intrigue science written by Clare Peddie.
Adelaide
- Peter's tour of Australia was
partially sponsored by SCINEMA'10.
Peter will also have a film presentation/lecture tour of New
Zealand
- September 10th-Department of
Physics and Astronomy-University of Canterbury, Christchurch
- September 8th-Carter Observatory,
Wellington
- September 7th-School of Chemical
and Physical Sciences- Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington
- September 6th-Institute of
Fundamental Sciences-Massey University in Palmerston North
- September 4th-Hawke's Bay Holt
Planetarium, Hawke’s Bay
- September 1st -Faculty of Science
University of Auckland, Auckland
- August 30th-Stardome hosted by the
Auckland Astronomical Society, Inc., Auckland
- August 29th-Radio Interview with
Graeme Hill on RadioLIVE, Auckland
Peter McLeish's tour of New Zealand is undertaken with the support
of the Canadian High Commission in Wellington.
Read about the amazing trip to
Australia's space observatory facilities Kristian Lang - the winner of
our 2009 Best Student Short Film prize - took as part of his SCINEMA
prize.
Join our
mailing list for more information.
|
