Diamond Light Source: opportunity

As part of my research there will be a chance for GWP residents to tour Diamond Light Source, the UK’s national synchrotron science facility.

This is an amazing opportunity to see inside the giant machine that speeds up electrons to near light speeds so that they give off a light 10 billion times brighter than the sun.

After the tour I’ll lead a discussion on themes and concepts for the GWP public artwork.

There’s no charge, but booking is essential due to tour size limit.

Location: Diamond House, Harwell Science and Innovation Campus, Fermi Avenue, Didcot, OX11 0QX

Date: Monday 9th November 2015 : 1.30pm - 5.00pm. Tour of facility followed by group talk.

Booking essential!    Please call/text or email me to secure a place.

Window sculpture at Cornerstone

A selection of photos form the project so far are featured in this display sculpture for the next few weeks at Cornerstone…

Public Art in GWP

I’d like to start working with a group of residents for a piece of public art that will be sited near the Northern Neighbourhood Community Centre.

Please see below for details...
My outline plan is to:

• Meet regularly at the community centre throughout October – November.
• We’ll chat about the public art for GWP, art in general and do some hands-on art activities every session.
• This is for adults, and should be interesting and fun. No arty experience necessary!

Throughout this process I’ll be developing sketch ideas for our public artwork, and we’ll be discussing those as things progress.

I’ve met some of you at various events over the summer, and now’s the opportunity to “sign-up” for these sessions.

If you’d like to take part please:

• Send me a message (or phone) to confirm you’d like to be part of this art group and meet up. 
• Let me know your preferred times/days to meet up, or whether you’re flexible. I’ll try to be accommodating.
• Spread the word! The more the merrier, as long as they live on GWP. Please forward this email and ask them to get in touch with me.

Please RSVP as soon as you’re able, as I will need to book the community centre.

CCFE tour

Today Rachel and I enjoyed an inspiring tour of the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy led by Susan Hayward.  It was good to discuss some of the physics and technology behind their nuclear fusion experiments and also energy and its supply in broader terms.

It's an amazing place, and the images I'd seen prior to the tour had focused on the vacuum chamber where the plasma is created, and I hadn't grasped the extent of the surrounding equipment.  We couldn't go into the hall, but there's a scale model in the visitor area (see the little man for an idea of scale):

Scale model of JET experiment.

We did get a look around other areas though, which included various pipes, lasers, cabinets of computers, cables. and a massively weighty door...

Rachel and a Big Door.

Sue explained that a significant factor in making JET such a lasting success has been the addition of mechanical prosthetic arms ( they did impress upon us not to call them robot arms, but it's hard not to).

The kind of snake out of slots in the wall, and the operator can repair/measure/check/clean the interior of the vacuum chamber without the delay and risk of sending a person in.

At the end of the tour was a series of photos showing the evolution of JET as various upgrades were developed and added:

Interesting how it starts as a fairly ideal geometrical form, becoming more armoured and heavy as the improvements accumulate.

JET is a stepping stone towards the next step in fusion technology, ITER in France, which among other things, is in turn a stepping stone to a demonstration fusion energy power plant.

Glorious striving.