PSR B0329+54 is a pulsar star about 3460 light years away from the Earth, in the Camelopardalis Constellation. It is approximately 5 million years old.
Pulsars have originated from the explosion of very large supernova stars, of which an extremely smaller “heart” remains, where matter is in a state of enormous compression. They can be intercepted thanks to their radio signal, a “pulsation” that corresponds to the rotation on their own axis.
Entitled with the first lines of an intense poem by Primo Levi, this work transforms the radio signal of PSR B0329+54 into a light signal.*
The work has been produced and exhibited by the XVI Share Festival, Turin, 2022, in collaboration with Osservatorio Astronomico Val Pellice.
“Cercavo te nelle stelle, quando le interrogavo bambino.”
("It was you that I was looking for amongst the stars, when I queried them as a child.”)
2022
MDF, sound and light generators, 45 x 45 x 45 cm
*Primo Levi, 11 febbaio 1946, in Ad ora incerta, Garzanti Editore, Milan, 1984