ART + PHYSICS
The aim of this project is to use the organizational possibilities of the internet to make a physics notebook more interactive and understandable. The starting page of the site presents the viewer with three choices: force, energy, and momentum. These are the three “lenses” that a physicist must choose to examine a situation with. The viewer can choose which path to go down; each path will begin to explain what each of these lenses are through diagrams, definitions, and examples. Many words, letters, and symbols will be linked together. Repition will be used within the site to reitterate information. For example, everytime the viewer clicks on the letter F, they will be taken back to the force formula page.
The internet has a looping quality to it naturally; so does physics. However, the linking possiblities that happen online are not possible on the printed page. The content of the site is made up of a real students physics notebook. Pages are scanned; the original handwritten information is not translated into text. The reason for this is that in addition to using the computer to bring the notes to life, the notes will be scaled to a larger size than their original state. In the same way linkage of information would not be possible without a computer, neither would this kind of visual manipulation. The computer will be used to take basic and often times scattered notes to reformat them to be less linear and more cyclic. Ideally, the connections that will be made from the notes between words, thoughts, and ideas will not only be representative of jumps the mind makes while processing information, but also be informative of the laws of physics.
The project is about taking raw material and organizing it, in making something coherent and approachable with information that is sometimes intimidating. It is a study of thought process, note taking, information absorbtion, connections, associations, and of course, physics.
IN THE STUDIO
