Conceived to exist in weightlessness by the artist Eduardo Kac and created on board the International Space Station by the French astronaut Thomas Pesquet, the work “Indoor Telescope” is the first milestone in a new form of artistic and poetic creation, freed from the constraints of gravity. The film “Indoor Telescope, a Space Work by Eduardo Kac”, takes us on an artistic and scientific adventure, from the conception of the work in Eduardo Kac’s studio in Chicago, to its realisation in orbit 400 km from Earth, during the Proxima mission of the European Space Agency.
With Eduardo Kac, Thomas Pesquet, Gérard Azoulay, Hugues Marchal and Thierry Duquesne. Directed by Virgile Novarina. Produced by the CNES Space Observatory, with the support of ESA and the Daniel and NinaCarasso Foundation.
The LTF’s mission is to explore and push the frontiers in time and frequency research, optical metrology, and ultrafast science and technology.
LTF also contributes Switzerland to join in a near future the limited number of countries that actively participate to the definition of the international atomic time TAI with primary frequency standards, with the development of the unique atomic fountain clock FOCS-2 that operates with a continuous beam of cold cesium atoms.
This research centre occupies the other buildings on the Neuchâtel Observatory site. In 2007, part of the Observatory’s activities were transferred to the MSRC. Its credo is: Managing and fostering innovation to convert groundbreaking basic research into advanced processes, leading to innovative products and helping industry and society prepare for the future.
Its activities cover the following areas: Aeronautics & transportation; Biotechnology & life sciences; Information & communication technologies; Energy & building solutions; Environment; Watchmaking; Home & industrial automation; Healthcare, wellness & sport; Security & surveillance; Semiconductor industry; Space & astrophysics; Food & agriculture,…
History CSEM’s success story began in the early 1980s as a result of the visionary plans of the Swiss Confederation.
Mission & Vision Championing industrial innovation and maintaining our role as a cornerstone in the transfer of disruptive microtechnologies.
Governance CSEM is a research and technology organization (RTO) and a public-private partnership.
Partnerships Building alliances and strategic partnerships is vital to coping with the fast pace of technological innovation and product development cycles.
Start-ups Start-ups or joint-ventures based on CSEM technologies contribute to the economic vitality of Switzerland and of established and emerging industries.
Certifications CSEM has been assessed and is certified as a demonstration of its commitment to best practice, efficiency, and sustainability.
87 million turnover 499 people 44 ventures 212 industrial clients
Sound showers allow a sound message to be broadcast in a targeted manner without disturbing others. You no longer need to wear headphones, they provide freedom and comfort. The sound showers are suitable for use in trade fairs, museums, amusement parks, shops, exhibitions…
Directional sound enclosure that creates sound bubbles. Product used for shops, museums, etc.
The transmitter is made up of 217 independent transmission points offering spatial sound control that is unrivalled in the market. Directed and focused sound. All integrated in a small product.
To determine Swiss time the Neuchâtel Observatory observed the passage of the stars above the meridian using a telescope. To make sure that the telescope was correctly adjusted, it was required to scan the north-south axis and identify two marks serving as reference points. These marks still exist today. The southern mark in Portalban has a direct link to swisstopo since it was integrated into the national survey network.
Sighting mark in Portalban (left), sighting mark in Chaumont (right)
What is a meridian sighting mark?
It is a stone construction which had to be visible with the meridian telescope. In order to enable the Neuchâtel Observatory to cover the north-south axis and thus determine the time at which the stars pass over the meridian, two telescopes had to be built. One to the north and the other to the south. If the telescope did not detect these marks, they had to be readjusted.
In 1959, the lack of precision of the meridian telescope and the arrival of atomic clocks sounded the death knell for the use of sighting marks. However, they are now part of the heritage of the Neuchâtel Observatory and swisstopo.
Where are these marks?
The Observatory of Neuchâtel had three sighting marks built. The closest was on the Mail hill, 80 meters from the Observatory. It no longer exists today. The northern sighting mark was erected in Chaumont, 3 kilometres from the Observatory. The third was built in Portalban, on the shores of Lake Neuchâtel, 9.5 kilometres south of the Observatory. Like the mark in Chaumont, the Portalban sighting mark still exists
The southern sighting mark in Portalban
The first mark in Portalban was rather crude. Indeed, in 1861, the Observatory had a black diamond painted on a rock on a white background. The second version of the mark was also created in 1861 and consisted of an obelisk 3.10 meters high. A white diamond surrounded by black was also painted on the stone structure.
The link between the Portalban sighting mark and swisstopo
In 1927, the Portalban sighting mark was integrated as a first-order fixed triangulation point and as a third-order triangulation point by the Federal Topographic Service (swisstopo). This fixed point was therefore measured precisely, and its coordinates are well known. As a result, the point is protected by federal law and cannot be dismantled. In 1886, a levelling pin was sealed on the sighting mark. swisstopo is responsible for its inspection and renovation. And its condition is checked every 12 years.
An exhibition in the heart of the Espace Découverte Energie (Ede).
Visits to EXPO ELECTRO are accompanied by a guide who will tell you all about the history of electricity and will brighten up your exploration of this magnificent building with illuminating anecdotes.
EXPO ELECTRO, permeated by the atmosphere of a former power station which has now been listed as a historic monument, features almost 500 items including a dynamo manufactured in 1896 by René Thury, a Swiss, in whose honour the first hall is named. A second hall acts as a contrast, showing 150 items (Edison bulbs, rectifiers, motors etc.) paying tribute to the genius and father of alternating current, Nikola Tesla.
The association “EspaceTemps”, which wants to safeguard the scientific heritage of the former Neuchâtel Observatory, inaugurated the renovated Portalban calibration sight this afternoon. For the Federal Office of Topography swisstopo, it is a 1st category marker of the national triangulation, for drawing up the map of the country. But let’s go back to 1861, when this calibration sight had another function…
Calibration sight of Portalban to calibrate the meridian telescope of the Neuchâtel Observatory. It was renovated during the year 2020 by the EspaceTemps Association.
This story unfolds in the dunes of the Dutch island Texel in a bunker from World War II that has recently been acquired by the Aviation & War Museum Texel.
Visitors crawl into the minds of Georgian soldiers, five days after their bold and bloody uprising. Having to admit failure, they decided it is every man for himself now. In this unique spatial audio experience you listen to the echo of a past that divides the island until today.
Michel de Vaan (lead designer): “This was a chance for us to design a narrative space that uses 3D audio as its only tool. It communicates the story in a very personal manner, but it is also the means to immerse visitors. Most importantly, leaving almost no visual elements allows for visitors to use the most versatile of media: their own minds.”
To create an audio drama that feels authentic, Kossmanndejong collaborated with professional actors and podcast-makers. Wandering through the bunker you will hear different dialogues between people who were in the bunker that day and you will get to understand their dilemma’s. Through a multi-dimensional sound system with very precise geo-tracking you will hear changes in direction and volume depending on where you walk
Bunker Vlijt Texel. Luchtvaart Museum Texel. Photo’s Thijs Wolzak
There was a time when there was, for example, a difference of 1 minute and 57 seconds between Geneva and Lausanne, 3 minutes and 8 seconds with Neuchâtel, 4 minutes and 1 second with Fribourg and 4 minutes and 50 seconds with Sion. As Jakob Messerli, Director of the Museum of History in Berne, writes in an article on time measurement, “In the mid-19th century, mechanical clocks were still set throughout the country according to sundials. The creation of the federal state in 1848 did not lead to any unification of time measurement systems and each Swiss locality continued to have its own time. With a difference of 18 minutes between the extreme points of the territory, from east (Val Müstair) to west (canton of Geneva)”. It was the installation of the telegraph network in 1852 that sounded the death knell for the coexistence of different times in the territory. The acceleration of communications required a unified system. In 1853, the Federal Council adopted the Berne mean time for all postal and telegraphic traffic. From 1860 onwards, this time was set daily by the Neuchâtel Observatory. In the second half of the 19th century, the railways also aligned themselves with Berne time, which became the national standard and Berne, the time capital of the country, in the second half of the 19th century. Yes, we were living on Berne time without always suspecting it. And for those who were indifferent to the clock stories, we can still hold on to the timeless Latin saying: “If you want to put a price on days, don’t count the hours!”.
Its creator was Dennis Severs, an artist who used his visitors’ imaginations as his canvas and who lived in the house in much the same way as its original occupants might have done in the early 18th Century. This he did for his own personal enjoyment as well as for the harvest of an atmosphere, which he then employed to provide the visitor with an extraordinary experience. To enter its door is to pass through a frame into a painting, one with a time and life of its own.
The game is that you interrupt a family of Huguenot silk weavers named Jervis who, though they can still sometimes be heard, seem always to be just out of sight. As you journey off into a silent search through the ten rooms, each lit by fire and candlelight, you receive a number of stimulations to your senses.
It is the smell of food that first aligns your imagination with the faces around you in portraits. Then… Mr. Jervis’ wig, is it not the very same one that hangs over the back of his chair? His meal is only half eaten; did he abandon it when he heard us arrive?
Visitors begin to do what they might if indeed they had travelled through a frame into a painting: use what they sense to piece together the scene they had missed. Thus, and this was Mr Severs’ intention, what you imagine… is his art.
It’s fun and now after almost thirty five years the experience ranks as one of the rarest in the world. David Hockney once rated its effect as standing amongst those of the world’s great opera experiences. Mr Severs spent a lifetime peering past sitters in paintings in search of the light and moods that lie in the air of Other Times. Sharing what he found and created here is what a visit to the house is all about. A rare thing to experience first hand: the warm, smoky light captured by the Old Masters; the creak of footsteps on wood; whispers and opening doors; arresting reflections, mixtures, textures and smells; the ticking and chiming of clocks; a cat and a canary. All this Mr Severs gave while at the same time encircling it with a picture he painted with recorded sound of a larger 18th Century world brooding outside its perimeter. Spellbinding… and at its core something very rare: soul, the bonding warmth of a generous family’s presence.
The experience is conducted in silence. Its level is poetic and unlike anything, so works best on those who are endowed, willing and able to meet it halfway. The house’s motto is “you either see it, or you don’t”. Post-materialist, it seeks to remind the visitor of a specific thing: what we cannot see is essential to what we do.
Be warned, it is a mistake to trivialise or pigeonhole the experience into any of the mothball camps: “heritage”, “local history”, “antiques”, “lifestyle” or “museum”. A visit requires the same style of concentration as does an exhibition of Old Masters.
Dennis Severs called his unique spectators sport “still-life drama”, and his goal was to provide his visitors with a rare moment in which to become as lost in another time as they appear to be in their own. He proved that the formula amounts to the same in any time, that getting caught up in it all is what we call “now”.
