A teaser for Liquid Crystals opening June 2nd

Igår kunde man få en förhandsvisning tillsammans med en konsert av Ultraviolet Alter som dessutom komponerat musiken i streamen till Betty Tureaud's nya installation Liquid crystals på Dividni Shostakovich's Split Screen Installation Space. Musiken till det korta bildspelet är inte från Ultras liveframförande utan hämtat från streamen när Betty visade oss runt efter konserten.



Betty says:

"I've always been fascinated by crystals and the way they appear and how we now use them technologically
-- beautiful colors occur in polarized light and in the microscope we see fantastic shapes. They can
receive radio signals and form images on a computer screen.

My first show in SL in 2007 showed crystals of human internal fluids. I made this installation just following my fantasy color world."

Liquid have a chemical structure which exhibits a substance-phase with the characteristics of the
conventional liquid form (liquid) and the solid form (in this case the crystal). For example, the liquid
crystal surface as a liquid, but have many molecules arranged and oriented in the crystal-like state.

There are many different types of liquid crystal phases which are distinguishable by their optical
properties.

Liquid crystals can be classified into thermotropic and lyotropic. Thermotropic liquid crystal display
phase transitions as a function of temperature, whereas the lyotropic liquid crystals exhibit phase
transitions as a function of the concentration of the mesogenic.

Liquid crystals are widely used in LCD-based watches, cell phones, PDAs, TVs and monitors. The advantage
of the liquid crystal optical properties of certain liquid substances crystallize in the presence or
absence of an alternating electric field. In a typical LCD there is a liquid crystal layer (typically 10
micron thick) between two polarization filters which are angled (oriented 90° relative to each other).

It should be noted that many standard liquids in fact are liquid crystals. Soap is, in fact, liquid
crystal, and liquid crystal displays several variant forms depending on their concentration in water.