Art and Science - Flat Earth Project

This semester has been a bit different as I've been doing an elective module - Art and Science - alongside my core illustration work which has made a nice change. It took me a while to get into it as there was no brief for the module which was initially intimidating for me as a designer, however now I'm really enjoying the freedom that's given me.

Initially I did quite a lot of research. I spoke with a couple of scientists - a biochemist working on sleeping sickness and a physicist who specialises in ultrafast photonics.

I enjoyed talking about physics as I loved it at school but I didn't want to do anything too serious for the project. I went to see the Turner Prize exhibition in Glasgow and was inspired by Bonnie Camplin's installation. I liked the idea of finding evidence for something and that people can prove anything if they omit certain facts and highlight others. This sparked a memory of an article I'd read years ago about the Flat Earth Society who are basically just a group of people who believe the earth is flat. I started looking into flat earth theory and thinking about how you could go about proving it.

I spoke to David (the physicist I had had an initial conversation with) about it and obviously he was pretty flabbergasted at the whole idea and really struggled with how he would go about finding evidence for the flat earth. I then recorded him and his friend Adam (another physicist) discussing how to prove that the earth was flat.

I considered what visual evidence you could use in support of flat earth theory - most of it pretty simple - for example, everyone is standing up, water is level etc (flat earth believers don't believe in gravity). I started working on some acetone transfers with screen prints using photos I'd found in encyclopedias and my own scribbly diagrams and writing.

I decided I wanted to create an installation of flat earth theory incorporating the recorded conversation with my prints and objects. As the final exhibition for the module would be in the life sciences building which isn't an ideal space I decided to create a wooden structure which I would be free to paint and stick things onto so I didn't have to compromise my idea.

scale model