Science Write Now Podcast

Comfort in the Cosmic with Alicia Sometimes

In this episode, Krystle speaks with Alicia Sometimes about her new poetry book Stellar Atmospheres, a collection that interweaves the scientific, the literary, and the personal. Sometimes’s lyrical yet accessible poems give musicality to cosmic ideas and remind us, in the best way, of our smallness. 
 
About Alicia Sometimes:

Alicia Sometimes is a writer, award-winning poet and broadcaster. She's given a TEDx talk, edited a national literary journal, and done breakfast radio with the ABC. She's performed her spoken word all over Australia and internationally. You can find her poems in many respected publications, including Best Australian Poems, Best Australian Science Writing, Overland, The Age, and Griffith Review.

About Stellar Atmospheres:

Most influential in the writing of Stellar Atmospheres were Sometimes’s dialogues with scientists at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Particle Physics at the Terascale (CoEPP), the ARC Centre of Excellence for Gravitational Wave Discovery (OzGrav) and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Dark Matter Particle Physics (DMPP). In collaboration with these organisations, Sometimes explored gravitational waves, particle physics and dark matter. The poet’s research with OzGrav culminated in the co-creation of Particle/Wave, a planetarium show with other artists and scientists, with a selection of these poems featuring in the Stellar collection.

In Stellar, Sometimes expresses her appreciation for the old science books (mainly from the 1800s) she pored over as a Virtual Writer in Residency for Manchester City of Literature and Manchester Literature Festival, accessed through the Portico Library.

In 2023, Sometimes completed the Australian Network for Art & Technology (ANAT) ‘Synapse’ Residency in collaboration with prominent astrophysicist Professor Tamara Davis (AM) at the University of Queensland. The project explored distance, mapping, composition and the measurement of the universe through the practices of language, contextualisation and symbolism. Sometimes explains that one of the poems in Stellar was written during this time, and that several more conjured at that time will emerge this year.

Experience a reading of Alicia's poem Constellation Rifts, written in response to having breast cancer in late 2022 here.

Sight Unseen: Visualising the Unseeable through Art and Science (Perimeter Editions 073).

I’m excited to have an essay and poem in this wonderful book, Sight Unseen: Visualising the Unseeable through Art and Science alongside so many luminaries.

Perimeter and CoVA are excited to announce the Melbourne book launch of Sight Unseen: Visualising the Unseeable through Art and Science (Perimeter Editions 073). Taking place at Science Gallery Melbourne, (700 Swanston St, Parkville) from 6pm, Tuesday March 12, the book will be launched with an introduction by Prof. Su Baker, and will also include presentations by esteemed contributors Prof. Elisabetta Barberio, Alicia Sometimes and Prof. Sean Cubitt.

We hope to see you there!

MELBOURNE LAUNCH
Science Gallery Melbourne
700 Swanston St, Parkville VIC 3053
Enter via Grattan St
Tuesday March 12, 2024
From 6pm

This is a free event.

ABOUT THE BOOK
In 2019, the previously unseeable became seen when the first image of a supermassive black hole was captured by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) project. Taking its initial inspiration from this pivotal event, Sight Unseen considers phenomena in our universe once hidden from human sight, now made visible through the combined efforts and outputs of artists and scientists. Collaborative, multidisciplinary and non-hierarchical in its scope, this collection of essays and images draws on Western and First Nations knowledge systems to ask readers to see together. To see via cross-disciplinary collaboration; to see with help from non-human forces and beings; to see the togetherness often hidden from our gaze; and to strive to see an ecological and cosmological entirety while acknowledging, through practiced humility, that we can only ever see a small portion of what exists. At its most fundamental, the act of seeing is the sensory experience of detecting light. A confluence of science, art, cultural knowledge, imaging and imagining, Sight Unseen – which is edited by Edward Colless, Suzie Fraser, and Ryan Jefferies, and designed by Daly & Lyon – positions the notion of sight to be so much more.

CoVA x Perimeter is collaborative publishing initiative curated by the Centre of Visual Art at the University of Melbourne and independent publishing house Perimeter Editions. Foregrounding experimental and otherwise innovative discursive outputs from three key streams of enquiry – Postnational Art Histories, Feminism and Intersectionality, and Art + Science – the program spans research-in-progress, academic dialogues, artist responses, and essays, working to reframe scholarly research via a multiplicity of new perspectives and lenses. The Art + Science series, supported by Science Gallery Melbourne, creates a space for shared and collaborative conversations and research between scholars and practitioners across the arts and sciences internationally. The series broaches some of the critical challenges facing humanity – from climate change to artificial intelligence and gene editing – through a dialogic exchange across scientific and artistic disciplines and modes.

With contributions by: Thomas Apperley, Elisabetta Barberio, Monica Bello, Drew Berry, Justin Clemens, Madeleine Collie, Sean Cubitt, Peter Galison, Adrian Heathcote, Chris Henschke, Tessa Laird, Beverley Meldrum, Karlie Noon, Patricia Piccinini, Alicia Sometimes, Will Steffen, Paul Thomas, Marcus Volz, Lisa Waup, and Liam Young.

FIND THE BOOK HERE

ANAT Synapse Residency 2023!

Have been so thrilled to be part of this and can’t thank Prof. Tamara Davis and team enough. Also, ANAT who are just so supportive, curious and an incredible organisation.

Left Alicia Sometimes. Right Ross Manning, Spiral Sequence, 2013. Photograph Alex Cuff.

ANAT Synapse Residencies

When art collides with science and technology, magic happens. This cross-disciplinary, creative collision is at the heart of everything ANAT does, most notably in our flagship residency program, ANAT Synapse.

ANAT Synapse is a residency program that involves Australian research organisations hosting artists in residence to undertake a period of creative research and practice. The program brings artists and researchers together in partnerships that generate new knowledge, ideas and processes beneficial beyond both fields.

Since its genesis in 2004, ANAT Synapse has enabled research collaborations between more than 100 artists and scientists. We have facilitated crossovers between numerous artistic and scientific disciplines over the years–between sound design and ecology, new media and data science, poetry and astrophysics, and many, many others. All genres of practice and fields of study are welcome.

 

2023 ANAT Synapse Residents

ALICIA SOMETIMES + PROFESSOR TAMARA DAVIS,
THE UNIVERSITY OF QUEENSLAND (UQ)

READ my Creative Research Journal HERE

Astro-Poetic Compositions is a collaboration between prominent astrophysicist Professor Tamara Davis (AM) and artist Alicia Sometimes exploring distance, mapping, composition and the measurement of the universe through the practices of language and symbolism. This collaboration sought to comprehend how language both constructs and impedes scientific knowledge.

Alicia Sometimes is an Australian poet, multi-media artist and broadcaster. She has performed her spoken word at many venues, festivals and events around the world. Her poems have been in Best Australian Science Writing, Best Australian Poems and more. She is director/co-writer of the art/science planetarium shows, Elemental and Particle/Wave.

Professor Tamara Davis is an astrophysicist and ARC Laureate Fellow at The University of Queensland with over two decades experience studying supernovae, black holes, and dark energy. She is currently leading the Australian Dark Energy Survey (OzDES), and will be the Deputy Director of the upcoming ARC Centre of Excellence for Gravitational Wave Discovery. She is an avid communicator of science and now a regular guest host of ABC TV’s “Catalyst” science show, including the episode “Black Hole Hunters” which won the American Institute of Physics Science Communication Award.

Alicia Sometimes, Dark Energy, image courtesy the artist

In This Room. Everywhere.

IN THIS ROOM. EVERYWHERE.

‘In this Room. Everywhere’ was part of the Dark Matters exhibition for Science Gallery Melbourne late 2023.

Alicia Sometimes & Andrew Watson (Singular Polarity) 

‘In this Room. Everywhere.’ is a unified and immersive sound experience connecting visitors throughout the gallery. Using video, sound, poetry and scientific narratives from researchers about one of the biggest mysteries of the universe.

Image: Andrew Watson

With generous contributions from Professor Alan Duffy, Dr. Ben McAllister and Dr. Grace Lawrence. 

Do you feel connected to the wider universe? 

Dark matter is a story of movement – its presence becomes apparent by how it impacts other things. It tells stories about structures – about how the hot early universe cooled and formed. Dark matter is everywhere. In this room. Everywhere. Every day we go about our lives unaware that invisible traces of the universe pass through our bodies: neutrinos, gravitational waves, cosmic rays, infrared radiation, ultraviolet radiation, microwaves and dark matter. We may know more about what dark matter is not, rather than what it is. Make your presence felt in this live visual and sonic sculpture exploring scientific narratives around dark matter. Even the smallest motions can affect other entities in significant ways. 

What do you know about dark matter? 

Singular Polarity is the combined force of Alicia Sometimes & Andrew Watson. 

Alicia Sometimes is a poet, artist and broadcaster. She has performed her spoken word and poetry at many venues, festivals and events around the world. She is director/co-writer of the art/science planetarium shows, Elemental and Particle/Wave. In 2020 she created an audio documentary for Radio National’s Science Friction called 'How do you solve a problem like Dark Matter?' She is currently a SGM ‘Leonardo’.  

Andrew Watson is a video artist, director, multi-instrumentalist and sound designer. His video art practice involves manipulation of real-world filmed elements manipulated into visceral imagery representing both the artistic and scientific. He was co-producer, video artist and composer for Particle/Wave. Watson has performed in many venues around the world. Andrew composed the soundtrack for the short film, ‘Gravitational Lensing’ (Alicia Sometimes, words; Sar Ruddenklau, visuals) on indirectly detecting dark matter. 

Thanks also to Leo K Fincher-Johnson for recordings at the Stawell Underground Physics Laboratory, Jackie Bondell and The ARC Centre of Excellence for Dark Matter Particle Physics; Aaron Quiskamp for sounds from The ORGAN Experiment; Rod Dowler and team at ANSTO; Steven Goldfarb at CERN; Aaron Cuthbert, Simon Davies and David Coles. 

Image: Andrew Watson

Image: Andrew Watson



Best of Australian Poems 2023

Best of Australian Poems 2023, Edited by Gig Ryan, Panda Wong

Andrea Rassell (sound) and I (poem and voice) have our poem, Bose-Einstein Condensate in the latest issue of Best of Australian Poems 2023 (Australian Poetry). There is a QR code that links to our poem online in Babyteeth Journal.

Best of Australian Poems is an annual anthology collecting previously published and unpublished poems to create a poetic snapshot and barometer of the year that was. Capturing the richness and diversity of Australian poetry across a timeframe of 1 July 2022–1 August 2023, the series (now in its third year) will explore how poetic responses to the contemporary moment develop with each passing year.

The 2023 book opens with an introduction by its editors, highly respected poets and editors Gig Ryan and Panda Wong. Gig Ryan is one of the country’s most highly recognised and read poets, with major awards for her poetry over decades, and a prominent publication profile both here and overseas. Panda Wong is on the vanguard of Australian literature as a poet, editor and performer whose work spans the page, stage and digital space. Previous editors of this prestigious series have been Ellen van Neerven and Toby Fitch (2021), and Jeanine Leane and Judith Beveridge (2022).

The Best of Australian Poems (BoAP) series is published by Australia’s national poetry organisation, Australian Poetry, and will feature two different guest editors each year, to amplify the range of voices selected. It is funded by the Australia Council for the Arts and individual patrons.

Bose-Einstein Condensate

Artist Andrea Rassell and I have a poem in the issue of Babyteeth Journal. Listen and read the poem in the link.

Bose–Einstein condensate — In the July 14, 1995 issue of Science Magazine, researchers from JILA reported achieving a temperature far lower than had ever been produced before and creating an entirely new state of matter predicted decades ago by Albert Einstein and Indian physicist Satyendra Nath Bose. Cooling rubidium atoms to less than 170 billionths of a degree above absolute zero caused the individual atoms to condense into a "superatom" behaving as a single entity. The graphic shows three-dimensional successive snap shots in time in which the atoms condensed from less dense red, yellow and green areas into very dense blue to white areas. JILA is jointly operated by NIST and the University of Colorado at Boulder.


The End of the Universe with poet Alicia Sometimes (Part 2 of 2)

If the universe began with a big bang, how will it end? This question has suddenly got very personal for acclaimed science poet Alicia Sometimes.

Physicists have got some hair-raising ideas, from the Big Crunch to the Big Rip. The personal, the poetic, and the physical of endings this week on Science Friction.

Hear Part 1: What Came Before the Big Bang

Guests:

Alicia Sometimes
Poet, writer, broadcaster, podcaster

Chris Ferrie
Quantum physicist, Associate Professor, Centre for Quantum Software and Information
University of Technology, Sydney
Author, Quantum Physics for Babies (and other children's books)

Katie Mack
Theoretical cosmologist, Associate professor, Department of Physics
North Carolina State University,
Hawking Chair in Cosmology and Science Communication
Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics
Author, The End of Everything (Astrophysically Speaking)

Writer: Alicia Sometimes
Producers: Alicia Sometimes, Natasha Mitchell, Lisa Needham
Sound Engineer: Matthew Crawford 

What Came Before the Big Bang?

Listen to Science Friction with Natasha Mitchell where I get to explore the possibilities of the moments before the Big Bang. Some of the music in here by Andrew Watson.

13.8 billion years ago our universe came into being. But do you ever wonder what came before ... before everything? Poet, podcaster, and cosmologically curious Alicia Sometimes has questions. But do scientists have the answers? 

Guests:

Alicia Sometimes
Poet, writer, broadcaster, podcaster

Professor Will Kinney 
@WKCosmo   
Cosmologist 
Author, An Infinity of Worlds:  Cosmic Inflation and the Beginning of the Universe (MIT Press, 2022) 
Department of Physics 
University at Buffalo, the State University of New York. 

Credits:
Writer: Alicia Sometimes
Producers: Alicia Sometimes, Natasha Mitchell, Lisa Needham
Presenters: Natasha Mitchell, Alicia Sometimes
Sound engineer: Angie Grant

Pic from Wikipedia