It has been an opportunity to reflect upon our past project (2019 – 2024) and the dialogue we share. With Melissa deLaney, Carollyn Kavanagh and Jenn Brazier opening up a discussion about how arts and science feed each other, and encouraging Richard and me to articulate our experience of this.
I find it is about curiosity, care, and an openness to how nature, science and arts intersect, overlap, as well as recognising how distinct they can be. A kind of optimism and trust and listening, deep listening…
So, with the wonderful prompts from the ANAT team,
I begin by reviewing my understanding of bubbles from my earlier project with Richard and his team.
As an example of the way in which art can not just reinterpret but also reframe science and play with existing forms and patterns from both disciplines, here is
‘The life-cycle of a bubble’
Recording bubbles in the lab, Photo by Filippo Nelli
It came about as video artist, long-time colleague Michael Carmody and I were looking to ‘translate’ the science and the basis of my previous bubbles work with Richard and his team on the then Surf Sounds, ARC-supported project.
We were looking for a way to ‘tell the story’ of the bubble within a narrative framework that general audiences could understand and respond to.
We had a few versions, and I must say, I quite like seeing the versions alongside each other – it says something about this particular ‘art of translating’ .
In any case, this is the artists’ version, a kind of ‘storyboard’, that we created and used in my public exhibition at Dock Gallery in 2025:
“1. There is a body of water, a waterline
2. Turbulent forces disturb the water
3. These disturbances form a bubble
making music since
pressure is a bubble’s restoring force
pressure has no direction
but force, … force has direction
4. The Bubble wants to be a bubble,
but pressure builds
strain is the response to stress
5. Inevitably the bubble bursts.”
By Michael Carmody and Elissa Goodrich, from discussions with Richard Manasseh, April 2025 and revised April 2026.
One of two bubbles and waves equipped Labs at Swinburne . Photo taken after today’s meeting.
Now, with Richard and his colleague Andrew Ooi at the University of Melbourne and their Bubble Clouds in Ocean Waves ARC- supported team, I turn my focus to bubble behaviour in bubble clouds and bubble curtains …
