CHRIS HENSCHKE + MARK BOLAND (UNIVERSITY OF SASKATCHEWAN & CANADIAN LIGHT SOURCE) & MICHAEL HOCH (CMS)

We are proud and delighted to announce, Chris Henschke has been named the recipient of the ANAT Synapse Fellowship for 2024!

This prestigious fellowship, commemorating 20 years of the ANAT Synapse residency program, offers a one-off fund to support a Synapse Alumnus in propelling the trajectory of their interdisciplinary artistic practice.

Chris has been awarded $20,000 to undertake the creative research project Future Accelerations & Quantum Expressions, returning to CERN to embark on an exciting two-month collaborative residency through the ART@CMS program. Working alongside his longtime collaborator Mark Boland (University of Saskatchewan and the Canadian Light Source), and CERN physicist Michael Hoch, Chris will develop several interrelated media and sculptural projects. This research will culminate in an exhibition as part of CERN’s 70th birthday.

During his ANAT Synapse Fellowship, Chris will delve into future accelerator technologies and expand upon his exploration of matter-energy harmonics, a pivotal aspect of particle physics. Drawing from his experiences in both his 2010 ANAT Synapse and 2018 ANAT Synapse CSIRO residencies, Chris intends to broaden his artistic practice by venturing into new realms of experimentation and performative expression.

Chris Henschke’s 2010 ANAT Synapse project Lightbridge, in collaboration with physicist Mark Boland, aimed to create an audio-visual interface to explore the nature of the Australian Synchrotron’s ‘tune’ – what scientists call the complex frequency harmonics generated from the synchrotron’s beam status and position data – and to make this real-time data available to other artists and researchers.

In his 2018 residency, Chris worked with CSIRO scientists Xavier Mulet and Michael Batten to test the potential for programmable Metal Organic Frameworks (MOFs) to produce audiovisual effects. He experimented with the nature of chemical synthesis, and how this could be manifested using the MOF chemicals directly. His experiments were then showcased in the Synthesism exhibition.

Now in 2024, in his ANAT Synapse Fellowship, Chris will develop a series of interdisciplinary art/physics projects at CERN, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research, working with his original 2010 Synapse collaborator Mark Boland, and CMS physicist Michael Hoch.

As part of the ANAT Synapse program, residents create online creative research journals, these serve as unique live documents of the residency and as a cultural artefact.

Read Chris' creative research journal

Chris Henschke is an artist who works with analogue and digital media, using methods and materials from experimental science, and has undertaken experimental interdisciplinary collaborations with scientists since 1991. Residencies include the National Gallery of Australia, 2004; an Asialink residency at Chulalongkorn University Bangkok, 2007; two residencies at the Australian Synchrotron, 2007 and 2010; and an ANAT Synapse residency with the CSIRO in Clayton, 2018-2019.

Chris’ academic qualifications include a Doctorate of Philosophy from Monash University (2013-2017), comprised of on-site research/practice at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN), Switzerland, as part of the ‘art@CMS’ collaboration program. Somewhat recent exhibitions include: How Everything Began, a group show at the Natural History Museum, Vienna, 2016, opened by Nobel Physics laureates Peter Higgs & Anton Zeilinger; Song of the Phenomena and Demon Core, commissioned for DARK MOFO 2019, Hobart; and Synthesism, an in-situ installation/presentation of his CSIRO nanomaterial experiments, 2019.

Prof. Boland completed a PhD in nuclear physics at the University of Melbourne, Australia, and a postdoc at Lund University, Sweden. He then became an accelerator physicist and between 2003-2017 helped build and operate the Australian Synchrotron. In 2017, Prof. Boland was appointed as the Machine Director at the Canadian Light Source and a Professor at the University of Saskatchewan. Awards and honours include a Fulbright Fellowship at Stanford and a JSPS Fellowship in Japan.

Michael Hoch, born in Vienna, Austria, studied applied physics at the University of Technology Vienna and pursued a teaching degree in physics and sports at the University of Vienna. He conducted doctoral research in particle physics at CERN, where he contributed significantly to the ALICE TPC field cage for the CERN-LHC project and later to the CMS experiment. In 2012, he founded the art@CMS program, followed by the ORIGIN network in 2017, both fostering dialogue between science and art globally.

The ANAT Synapse Fellowship is supported by the Australian Network for Art and Technology (ANAT) and the ART@CMS program at the European Organization for Nuclear Research/Conseil européen pour la Recherche nucléaire (CERN).

ANAT Synapse Residencies 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | OLDER

For over thirty-five years, from its home base, Tarndanya on Kaurna Country (Adelaide, South Australia), the Australian Network for Art and Technology (ANAT) continues to be the national leader in the field of experimental arts and cross-disciplinary practice with science and technology partners. The not-for-profit organisation operates on a continuum with varying entry points, including residencies, workshops and triennial events. Engaging artists at every level of their creative research practice, sci-tech-art curious audiences and science and technology partners like universities and research facilities, ANAT believes in the essential role artists play across all areas of society.