Kairos

Kairos is a generative artwork that responds in near real-time to mergers of massive stellar objects, which generate distortions in spacetime called gravitational waves. The piece is connected to NASA’s General Coordinates Network and listens for gravitational wave events detected by the LIGO, the world's largest gravitational wave observatory. The artwork cycles through four distinct events: mergers between black holes, mergers between neutron stars and black holes, mergers between neutron stars and unknown phenomenon yet to be identified. 

Kairos is an artistic interpretation of the way that massive objects create ripples in spacetime, a concept from quantum physics illustrating the universe’s intricate interconnectedness. Drawing on Einstein’s theory of relativity, it depicts the spacetime continuum as a fabric that ripples and buckles under gravitational forces. In Kairos, this metaphor is brought to life. The textile we see on the screen is a two-dimensional representation of an imaginary fabric encircling our planet. The upper screen reflects the Northern Hemisphere, the lower the Southern. Pulses that emerge on the fabric indicate the location where a gravitational event is detected from our planet's perspective.

A marvel of precision engineering, LIGO consists of two massive laser interferometers located 3000 km apart. These interferometers merge sources of light to generate interference patterns that collect information about the phenomenon being studied. They are used to measure everything from the smallest variations on the surface of a microscopic organism, to the structure of enormous expanses of gas and dust in the distant universe.  

Kairos bridges the gap between abstract scientific concepts and sensory art. It also offers us a window to the furthest reaches of the universe, connecting us to major cosmological activity that we are only recently beginning to understand.