parting the waves, by semiconductor

Parting the Waves brings together a collection of works created between 2007 and 2022 by Semiconductor, the British duo formed by Ruth Jarman and Joe Gerhardt. Over the last twenty-five years, Ruth and Joe have become a reference for moving image works, sculptures and installations which explore the material nature of our physical world and how we experience it through the lens of science and technology. Some of the duo’s work has been made in renowned laboratories and universities such as CERN, NASA’s Space Science Laboratory, or the Charles Darwin Research Station.
Through research that combines documentary and collection, screening and compilation of untreated databases, Semiconductor reimagines the scientific process through pieces in moving image, film, installation and sound. The View from Nowhere (2018) and Magnetic Movie (2007) take us inside the laboratories of CERN, the European organisation for nuclear research, and NASA; in 20Hz (2011), recordings of geomagnetic storms in the Earth’s upper atmosphere lead to an animation of inference patterns and otherworldly soundscapes; in Black Rain (2009), interplanetary solar winds are tracked by twin satellites on a solar mission; and in Through the AEgIS, antimatter interactions unfold over a time-lapse of 100. 000 microscopic scans. Often created during intensive periods of research in laboratories, Semiconductor’s exploration and reframing of scientific processes opens up worlds that are usually beyond our senses: infinitely small, at a vast scale unattainable or not visible to the human eye. The works make tangible these normally out-of-reach phenomena, seeking to question both our role as observers and the limits of scientific endeavour.