Skip to content
30 Jan – 9 Feb 2025

Semiconductor

Semiconductor is made up of UK artists Ruth JARMAN and Joe GERHARDT. Over the past twenty-five years of collaboration they have become known for a unique and innovative body of moving image works, sculptures and installations which explore the material nature of our physical world and how we experience it through the lenses of science and technology. Their works bring into tangible experience that which is outside of what is humanly perceivable, confronting the viewer with information which is ordinarily outside of a human scale, both of time and space. Solo exhibitions include House of Electronic Arts, Basel, Switzerland; City Gallery, Wellington, New Zealand; FACT, Liverpool, UK; Axiom Art and Science Gallery, Tokyo, Japan; National Center of Contemporary Arts, Santiago, Chile. They have undertaken intensive research at a number of prestigious scientific institutions including CERN, Geneva, Switzerland and The NASA Space Sciences Laboratories UC Berkeley, California. Awards include 20Hz Golden Gate Award for New Visions, at San Francisco International Film Festival; Art and Science Award, Ann Arbor Film Festival, USA and the first Samsung New Media Award, UK. Their works are held in both public and private collections.

Filmography

(selection) 200 Nanowebbers (2005, short), Brilliant Noise (2006, short), Do You Think Science (2006, short), Ways of Making Sense (2006, short), Magnetic Movie (2007, short), Matter in Motion (2008, short), Black Rain (2009, short), Heliocentric (2010, short), 20 Hz (2011, short), Where Shapes Come From (2016, short), Through the AEgIS (2017, short), Parting the Waves (2017, short), As the World Turns (2018, short), The View from Nowhere (2018, short), HALO (2018, instal), Morphogenic Movements (2022, instal), Spectral Constellations (2022, instal)

Semiconductor at IFFR

  • Spectral Constellations

    A series of generative animations and mesmerising visuals, using scientific data from young stars.

    • Art Directions: Installations

  • Black Rain

    Satellite images of spectacular solar phenomena, with artefacts intact, evoke the mysteries of the universe. 

    • Short & Mid-length

  • Matter in Motion

    Give me matter and motion and I will construct the universe (René Descartes, 1596-1650). Semiconductor reconstructs the city of Milan in a stunning wa

    • Spectrum Shorts

  • Magnetic Movie

    Beautifully visualised magnetic fields in challenging laboratory setup.

    • Short: As Long As It Takes

  • Where Shapes Come From

    A scientist goes about his daily work in mineral preparatory labs, cutting up large meteorites. Fantastic shapes begin to emerge, showing how science

    • Bright Future Short

  • 20 Hz

    20 Hz observes a geo-magnetic storm occurring in the Earth’s upper atmosphere. The data is interpreted as audio and generates complex sculptural forms

    • Spectrum Shorts

  • Heliocentric

    The sun finally breaks through in the cinema with the blinding Heliocentric by the popular scientific Semiconductor Films. Soundtrack by BJ Nilsen.

    • Tiger Awards Short Film Competition