ALEXANDER JAMES HAMILTON: FROM WATER TO THE UNIVERSE
Alexander James Hamilton’s latest works look as though they might be created from CGI or AI platforms, but are in fact analogue photographs made with just resonance physics, liquid, and light. Hamilton adopts an unusual methodology, using one scientific phenomenon to throw light on another. Studio investigations of cymatics yield results analogous to the gravitational waves in deep space which have been the subject of recent scientific interest – the point being that space-time waves and liquid-time waves have fundamental physical relationships.
So, what is the excitement around gravitational waves and black holes? Albert Einstein predicted the existence of gravitational waves in 1916 in his general theory of relativity, which describes gravity as the curvature of space-time caused by mass and energy. A gravitational wave is an invisible (yet incredibly fast) ripple in space travelling at the speed of light (186,000 miles per second). Researchers at the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) in the US and the VIRGO detector in Italy have recently announced the first evidence of a background of long-wavelength gravitational waves that fill the cosmos. Hamilton explains that ‘these waves are thought to have been created over eons by supermassive black holes, up to billions of times the mass of our Sun, circling each other before they merge. Because the wavelengths of these gravitational waves are measured in light years, detecting them required a vast array of antennas to enable the collection of millisecond pulsars. The data from LIGO and VIRGO confirming their existence will aid many aspects of astrophysics, including the finding of new black holes – telescopes cannot detect them, but now we can search for wave traces and locate them easily. We are certain to find one very close to us, now we know how to look.’ Moreover, ‘gravitational waves from binary neutron star mergers can be used to measure cosmological distances with great precision. The observed light and gravitational wave signals from these events allow researchers to determine the Hubble constant, a fundamental parameter describing the rate of the universe's expansion. This has implications for our understanding of the universe's age, size, and evolution. They will also take forward nuclear astrophysics, as gravitational waves emitted during neutron star mergers carry information about the extremely dense matter in the cores of these stars. Observing the merger and its aftermath provides insights into the behaviour of nuclear matter, as well as the production of heavy elements like gold and platinum through nucleosynthesis.’
Hamilton explains his interest in gravitational waves being their centrality to what many scientists have described as our ‘spongy’ universe, with galaxies morphing into wall-like sheets, leaving huge voids of nearly empty space. That, he says, ‘can be seen as a reflection of the universe as though it had emerged through a cosmic cataclysm, caused by an entanglement of gravitational waves … making tangible an unfolding and affective understanding of space-time displacement. The data now shows that our universe is absolutely humming with gravitational waves and radiation – a very low-frequency rumble that rhythmically stretches and compresses space-time and the matter embedded in it. The question now is: are the gravitational waves with wavelength timelines ranging from years to decades, even to light years, also produced by black holes? The black holes' orbital dance prior to merging vibrates space-time analogous to the way waltzing dancers rhythmically vibrate a dance floor. Such mergers over the 13.8-billion-year age of the universe produced gravitational waves that today overlap, like the ripples from a handful of pebbles tossed into a pond.’ Hamilton, then, sees gravitational waves as springboards for a continued symbiosis with our imperceptible universe: a symbol of the interrelation of beings on earth and in space, a heterogeneous immaterial architecture. Then, he suggests, ‘the idea of suspending the void, of capturing and separating it from the surrounding empty space, prompts reflections on the ways we attune with the Universe, floating as it were with our feet on the ground.’
Given all that, it would be exciting to capture such waves visually. We can’t, but it occurred to Hamilton that cymatic waves have many parallels. Cymatics is a modal vibrational phenomenon whereby the surface of a plate, diaphragm, or membrane is vibrated, and regions of maximum and minimum displacement are made visible in a thin coating of particles, paste, or liquid. Different patterns emerge in the excitatory medium depending on the geometry of the plate and the driving frequency. Hamilton’s broader photographic practise has made extensive use of water as a medium from and through which to film, and he homed in on that as a setting for cymatic waves – which are very like gravitational waves in how they move and their appearance if we could see them. He describes them as ‘a multitude in every direction, rippling from one encounter into another like a multi-dimensional ocean surface, all with a frequency, amplitude and direction, just fascinating. Cymatic work specifically explores the relationship of resonance in wave behaviour, and their interactions with specific shapes or parallels – some of the works have been created from inside 3D-printed petri dishes with shaped facet edges (e.g. Plate 0864). My aim is to make the waves visible over time, to see the waves’ intricate deformations as they interact with each other, just as in space.’ And at certain frequencies, explains Hamilton, ‘the waves resonate perfectly to create Faraday or standing waves. Basically, they line up so well, the liquid takes on a pattern that doesn't appear to move’. Those – such as Plate 0152 – draw Hamilton to their ‘order, connections and link formations, almost like seeing electricity travelling through a circuit - functional and alive with ordered physics.’
Volkswagen, 2010 from the series ‘Rosae’
That assessment of suitability won’t surprise those who have seen Hamilton’s earlier work. He doesn’t see himself as a photographer, more as a sculptor whose setting is water, and his core practice over four decades has been to create explorative bodies of work using the signature of water in locations all around the world. That has taken the form of making underwater photographs with analogue equipment, the water operating both symbolically and as the means of generating painterly effects in his revisiting of flowers, butterflies, Vanitas subjects and figures. He has also been deeply committed to environmental causes, consistent with his comments on how we attune with the universe. That is not limited to his art: Hamilton has, for example, advocated for over thirty years for change in the tourism industry at community, NGO and government level in the Maldives, and moved there in order to stimulate recycling where he found there were ‘no facilities for recycling plastic or aluminium, or indeed creating fresh water on the local islands; everything was brought across by boat in plastic bottles’. In response, Hamilton has designed and funded the building of recycling facilities – and plans are in place to expand the approach to other remote island communities.
Lament in free fall, 2014 from the series ‘Dissolved Sadness’
Hamilton’s previous art might be seen as taking us from the traditional, personal Memento mori – ‘remember you will die, whatever you do, get used to it’ – to the wider ‘remember the whole planet will die – unless we act fast’. To take three examples the ‘Rosae’ series (2010) implicates the pretences of commerce and religion by forming their signs out of underwater arrangements of roses so that, in James’ words, ‘a symbol of unrelenting love is juxtaposed against a deep dark void’. The images of Dissolved Sadness (2013-14) feature people underwater, their poses inspired by nineteenth century paintings but acting as harbingers of rising sea levels. All Icons are False (2016-17) returned to flowers, but in a more complex mode: Hamilton took 850 plate film photographs of 50 petal-heavy arrangements of flowers densely combined underwater, then variously layered these ‘core plates’ on a scanner – up to four at a time – using both positive and negative images. The rhythms which result are complicated, as not only are several plates scanned, but both the natural forms of the flowers and the wave effects of the water make their separate contributions. The flowers were all old varieties, returning us to how they looked at the time when their biblical symbolism was most vivid – suggesting how we have lost sight of fundamental truths.
Untitled Plate 003-8.2, 2016 from the series ‘All icons are false’
For Hamilton, then, his latest use of cymatics ‘is a confirmation of the scope of how my underwater process has always worked in a multi-dimensional way. I use light like all photographers, of course: this energy in the form of a wave of energised photons is skimmed horizontally across the water’s surface, never pointing directly at the subject below. The surface of the water has mechanical wave energy that create peaks and troughs, so the waves act as a mobile and fluid lens, allowing me to use the surface tension of the water to choose where and how the light should fall onto the subject’. Over the years that has created a myriad of multidimensional interactions of light and subject. The exposure time can be used to grab, compress and expand what is actually physically there in direct relation to the water wave shape and the light lens it forms. The subjects visually deform and are seen within another dimension due to the light being stretched and compressed. Hamilton sees these unique wave forms as his life’s work: no wonder is it gratifying to find that the same principles he has been exploring can provide an analogy for studying the emergence of the known universe, as shown in gravitational waves.
You can explore Hamilton’s work more fully at his DistilEnnui.com website. The actual portfolio of released works in the still-expanding cymatics series can be found here.
Cymatic Plate No 0701
© 1990-2023 Alexander James Hamilton, Distil Ennui Studio™.
All images shown courtesy of the artist © 1990-2023 Alexander James Hamilton, Distil Ennui Studio™.