Glacial Optics - Ghost Particles, 2023
Ice Lens photographs and large scale photograms exploring the ‘glacial gaze’ of IceCube Neutrino Observatory in Antarctica.

Situated at the geographic South Pole, the IceCube Neutrino Observatory consists of an array of thousands of particle sensors embedded in a cubic kilometer of crystal-clear glacier ice. It would have been impossible to manufacture such a large volume of glass or other transparent material, so scientists utilized the glacier itself as a kind of ready-made lens, turning the entire glacier into an optical element.

As an artist, I saw a powerful connection to the glacial gaze I had been exploring in my ongoing Glacial Optics series. I reached out to the scientists behind IceCube and they invited me to do an artist residency at their Wisconsin headquarters. In 2023 I spent a week at the lab where a team of particle physicists, astronomers, and engineers were building the next generation of sensors for IceCube. I arrived with my ice lens camera to see what I might discover from this glacial observatory.

This is part of my ongoing series Glacial Optics, exploring glacier ice as a literal and conceptual lens through with to understand ourselves and the world. In this work I explore the ‘gaze of the glaciers’ as offering a perspective beyond the human fame —invoking the glacier’s massive scale, its sense of deep time, and, increasingly in the face of climate change, its massive fragility.

This project was made possible in part by support form the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) Art +Technology Lab Grant. Additional support came from the Wisconsin IceCube Particle Astrophysics Center (WIPAC). Thanks to Francis Halzen, Jim Madsen, Delia Tosi, and whole team at WIPAC; Terry Benson and the team at Physical Sciences Laboratory (PSL); Douglas Rosenberg, Helen Lee, Darcy Padilla, and the faculty at the UW Arts Department; and Joel Ferree at the LACMA Lab for helping to make this project possible. A special thanks to Andrew Siegel and Derek Larsen for assisting!