Artist Chris Henschke has spent more than a decade exploring the intersection of art and physics. His pieces bring invisible properties and theoretical concepts to light through still images, sound and video.

His latest piece, called “Song of the Phenomena,” gives new life to a retired piece of equipment once used by a long-time collaborator of Henschke, University of Melbourne and Australian Synchrotron physicist Mark Boland.

Crossing paths

The story of “Song of the Phenomena” begins in the 1990s. In 1991, Henschke enrolled in the University of Melbourne to study science, but he turned to sound design instead. Boland entered the same university to study physics.

Personal computers were just entering the market. Sound designers and animators began coding basic programs, and Henschke joined in. “I was always interested in making sounds and music, interested in light and art and physics and nature and how it all combines—either in our heads or the devices that mediate between us and nature,” he says.

Boland completed his thesis in physics at the Australian Radiation Laboratory (now called the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency). He was testing a new type of electron detector in a linear accelerator, or linac. The linac used radio waves to guide electrons through a series of accelerator cavities, which imparted more and more energy to the particles as they moved through.

That particular linac spent more than 20 years with the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency, where medical physics professionals used it to accelerate electrons to different energies to create calibration standards for radiation oncology treatments. Once they no longer needed it, Boland’s former advisor contacted him to ask if he’d like the accelerator or any of its still-working parts. He said yes, though he was unsure what he would do with it.

An artist’s view

In 2007 Henschke came to the Australian Synchrotron as part of an artist-in-residence program. Boland was familiar with his artwork; he had seen Henschke’s first piece exploring particle physics in the pages of Symmetry. Boland grew up with an appreciation for art; he says his parents made sure of that by “dragging” him through many galleries in his youth.

When Henschke and Boland met, they got into an hours-long conversation about physics. “We hit it off, we resonated,” Boland says, “and we’ve been working together ever since.”

Since that first residency program, Henschke has spent significant time at the Australian Synchrotron facility and at CERN European research center and has taken shorter trips to the DESY German national research center.

His process of creating artwork echoes the scientific process and the setup of an experiment, Boland says. Henschke thinks through the role that each piece of the artwork plays. Everything is where it is for a reason.

“He’s a perfectionist, he doesn't settle for second best,” Boland says. “He has the same level of professionalism and tenacity as an artist as a physicist does. It’s as if there’s a five-sigma quality test on his work as well.”