Together with Sommerfilmakademie organizer Rashomon e.V. and the German Center for Astrophysics (Deutsches Zentrum für Astrophysik, DZA), the Center for Advanced Systems Understanding (CASUS) presents an evening at the intersection of science, movies and art: IGAL – Intergalactic Lusatia.

The event begins with a short public science talk by Prof. Günther Hasinger (DZA) titled “Once Big Bang and back in 15 min.” It is followed by another public talk by Ass. Prof. Samaya Nissanke (University of Amsterdam) on “Emotions from distortions in spacetime”. Afterwards, Dr. Jiří Vyskočil & Dr. Ezgi Yılmaz (both CASUS) will give an introduction to their virtual reality installation “How cosmic structures evolve” that later that evening can be experienced in a separate room. (More on the installation below.)

The main program continues with short movie clips with sounds composed by Carsten Nicolai alias Alva Noto (HfBK Dresden). After a break for dinner (Vietnamese cuisine), the event features a movie night that starts at 8 pm with a short film followed by the feature film “Die Theorie von allem”, an award-winning thriller and film noir by Timm Kröger.

Where? Rabryka, Görlitz (Conrad-Schiedt-Str. 23, 02826 Görlitz – opposite of CASUS Werk 1 location)
When? Wednesday 10 July, 2024 from 5 pm to 10 pm
How much? Admission is free but donations are welcome.
Drinks? The Lüders bar at Rabryka offers lemonade, beer, wine and cucumber gin tonic.

Virtual reality installation “How cosmic structures evolve”

Have you heard about the dark ages? If you think about the time after the fall of the Western Roman Empire you are on the wrong track. We have some other dark ages to talk about. If you go back in time, really far back, then there was a time after the Big Bang when the Universe was empty of the familiar astrophysical objects that we observe today. There were no light-producing structures such as stars and galaxies. In terms of ordinary matter, there were only certain gases around.

Towards the end of these so-called dark ages, first stars and galaxies appeared. Later on, larger structures like groups and clusters of galaxies formed – held together by gravity. Hence, the study of the large-scale structure in modern cosmology aims to answer questions like how these structures have formed and evolved, and how is it that they are distributed in such a way that they form recognizable patterns across space (and time).

The visualization you will experience shows the distribution of dark matter in the Universe. You will discover in fast-forward that – over billions of years – dark matter is getting organized in filaments and nodes, that host the luminous objects made out of ordinary matter like stars, galaxies and galaxy clusters. The structure as a whole resembles a giant spider web and, not surprisingly, this biggest structure in the Universe is indeed referred to as the “cosmic web”.

• Explore the Universe from the dark ages to the present!
• Experience the vastness of the Universe!
• Get to know dark matter and dark energy!