Revolving Black Hole
Orbiting Nothingness

1998

Hideyuki Hashimoto (JP)

"Revolving Black Hole" is an installation with one of the most fascinating phenomena in the entire universe at its center.

Hashimoto's work of art illustrates the behavior of objects and energy fields in the vicinity of a black hole, and projects the objects onto a round screen made of elastic material.

The viewer can use a sensor to control the rotational speed of the black hole, and observe how its mass increases with higher rotational speed. While this is going on, the field—and thus the projection surface as well—is stretched out.

With four buttons, the observer can trigger colored particles and send them into the force field. Depending upon the particles, the object and the rotational speed of the black hole, different flight paths and levels of acceleration are produced, which the visitor can observe and control.