Splitting Hairs is a collaborative art-science project produced by computer scientist James Wedum and visual artist Casey Fletcher made possible by the Marie Christine Kohler Fellowship through the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery. The exhibition showcases the double-slit experiment conducted by Thomas Young in the early 19th century which determined that light behaves as both a particle and a wave. In the original experiment, Young used a piece of paper with a small hole in it to cover a window and create a narrow beam of sunlight. A thin card was then used to split this beam, demonstrating how light can behave as both a wave and a particle. Hairs collected from volunteers are used instead of a card, and cast a pattern of dots unique to each sample when struck by a laser.
This project is meant to draw attention to the limits of categorization and empirical evidence. These distribution patterns created by the hair can provide us with a precise understanding regarding a specific quality belonging to a specific person, yet this information is limited in its ability to give us a complete picture. The distribution pattern and survey responses are unique to the each subject and are enmeshed with part of their identity, but they are decidedly not the whole identity of the individual. This exhibition is meant to be a conduit for reflection of what we collectively choose to look to as signifiers of identity. Each one of these (race, sex, gender, faith, political affiliation, etc.) is based in empirical reality but each is chosen to be emphasized or ignored on the basis of the subjective values of a given culture.
This exhibition consists of five armatures, each holding a laser directed towards a human hair taken from a diverse spread of subjects. As the collimated light from the laser passes the hair suspended in the steel plate at the end of the armature, its particles begin to behave strangely. Instead of casting a singular beam of light, the laser ripples like an ocean wave breaking against a rock and creates the distribution pattern seen in the shadowbox. These ripples of light pass over each other, causing constructive and destructive interference. This interaction, where the peaks and troughs of the waves either cancel or amplify each other, creates the pattern of light and darkness you see.
Each individual’s pattern is influenced by the unique features of their hair sample (texture, thickness) and can serve as a fingerprint. When measured, the space between light (constructive interference) and dark (destructive interference) points can reliably be used to measure the diameter of each hair. But, can it meaningfully tell us anything else about the donor?