About Arthur Jeffes

Emotions from distortions in spacetime

When speaking about gravitational waves, many people are unable to grasp a seemingly unworldly and abstract concept. It is curious phenomenon hidden far away in outer space, predicted and based on one of the most complex yet revolutionary theories of our time — Einstein’s theory of general relativity (1916). It is impassable, but some science topics are just not that attractive to the general public. However, for musician, composer and producer Arthur Jeffes, getting the audience connected with such convoluted and abstract science is his ultimate goal. Inspired by the vast collapse of these ripples in the curvature of spacetime, often resulting from the destructive interaction of two massive black holes, he composes music that represents the catastrophous clash. He attempts to bridge knowledge more emotive and intuitively to a non-specialist. On stage of TEDxUHasselt 2018, during his talk entitled “Creating music from gravitational waves: emotions from distortions in spacetime”, Arthur will demonstrate visually and sonically how these waveforms can be directly translated into musical texture and ideas. Aiming to draw more attention to this curious discovery, Arthur will unravel the sound of space emphasising that science and music can go hand in hand.