Jo Wonder is a performer and fine artist. In October she took part in the panel debate chaired by Professor Jim Al-Khalili, 'The God Particle: Is science the new religion?'. The debate incorporated her two-screen video installation ‘Flatlanders’ to celebrate the monumental particle physics experiment at CERN.
When Jo heard that scientists were doing an experiment to try and recreate the conditions that were there at the beginning of the universe, she thought it would be like Bruegel’s painting, ‘The Fall Of Icarus'. Like the ploughman, who continues ploughing the field after Icarus falls from the sky, we probably wouldn’t be taking any notice.
Flatlanders is a high definition video painting, with two moving images interpreting both a positive and a negative outcome of Icarus flying to the sun. Creating a paradoxical relationship to the nature of progress, so that the Icarus in one image gains his wings and in the other he loses them and falls.
In the image a woman also holds perfectly balanced scales while she rides on a swing and Bruegel characters remain oblivious to the monumental experiment at CERN. The sound of Icarus wings were recorded by students from Oxford University while working in Infusion Pump Cooling Station at CERN.
The debate was an important element to the installation and Jo was pleased that 'Flatlanders' was included alongside a discussion about science, which she feels is something fluid and unresolved, and more true to the nature of life than a frozen image in an art gallery.
Watch the 'Flatlanders' video installation here.
(This is a compressed version of the high definition video).
Jo would like to thank Milton Mermikides for his imaginative sound track, and Oxford Film And Video (funded by Screen South) for their support during post production of this project.
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