• Default profile image
  • Paul O’Shaughnessy

Paul
O’Shaughnessy

Paul O’Shaughnessy

99.9999999999999%

99.9999999999999% consists of two overhead projectors, two random tone generators (created in Pure Data application) and approximately 100 petri dish sized photograms, all housed in an inside out garden shed. Salt and water are resonated in petri dishes with vibration speakers suggesting notions of atoms and the basic building blocks of life. These chaotic and random projections are reflected back, to create an immersive and common space in which the work is experienced, suggesting that you are inside yourself, full of atoms and vibrations. In the shed, there is an illuminated shelving unit filled with petri dishes, each framing an ongoing experiment with photograms, symbolising fundamental similarities in methodology between art and science.

99.9999999999999% is said to be the amount of empty space in an atom. This notion of perceived emptiness enables discussion about reality, and how we see ourselves in it.

The autonomy of art, perhaps allows a reinterpretation of scientific information, in which I attempt to elucidate the differences between fact based interpretation and subjective interpretation through artistic conceptualisation. This work attempts to question knowledge and its limitations.