Today’s cutting-edge scientific theories may one day be seen as quaint and curious museum pieces: theoretical antiques or abstract junk.

What happens to once celebrated, now superseded theories?

Physicists have been developing sophisticated theories around the existence of things that are impossible for us to see, perfecting mathematical models of the ‘beyond-visible’ worlds of the very large and distant (using Einstein’s theory of relativity) and the very small (using quantum mechanics).

Focusing on this realm of the intangible, I wanted to explore how abstract theoretical ideas can be visually represented. I also wanted to play with the notion that today’s cutting-edge theories may one day be seen as quaint and curious museum pieces: theoretical antiques or abstract junk.

Perhaps the objects might be found in someone’s dusty attic or turn up on Antiques Roadshow in the future: “Oh my! Look what they thought in 2008!”

Tamsin van Essen

Tags: antiques, fantasy, science