What is the 60Hz Telescope?

The 60Hz Telescope is both a device and a work of art. It reveals a beautiful and hidden dimension of the modern world. Everywhere, all over the globe, lights are flickering. Streetlights are flashing, buildings are going dark. All of this happens faster than we can see. The 60Hz telescope slows this flickering down and allows us to see it.

What?

Yes. The lights all around you that look like they shine steadily are turning on and off at a very fast rate.

Why?

I’m interested in challenging viewers to reconsider what it means to see. I want to (re)animate our everyday world with something that is undeniably real, something that is already there. Above all, I want viewers to experience their own experience. Ultimately, I want to create art that is individual and universal, that is about the elusive things that make us human.

No I mean, why are the lights flickering?

It’s a bit of an arcane secret of the modern world.
The electrical power that comes out of the wall and that runs everything from the subway to Times Square to your microwave is delivered by an alternating current. An alternating current means that the current switches direction many times every second. In the US the current does it many (120) times every second. Every time the current switches direction, it has to (briefly) stop. When the current stops, many kinds of light fixtures (briefly) stop producing light.
The 60Hz telescope uses a high speed shutter to capture the same moment in this flickering cycle over and over. Or rather, it uses the shutter to hide from the viewer’s eye all but one moment in the cycle. This way the telescope effectively slows the flickering down so that it can be seen.

What’s next?

I have to build the telescope. So watch this blog for the exciting progress of planning and construction! Be with me when the motor spins for the first time! Watch in amazement as it takes the first video of the flickering!

And then I have to tell the world about it. And that’s what this website is for.