By Lisa Baldi
WYOMISSING, Pa. — Azar Panah, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at Penn State Berks, has coordinated an educational art exhibition inspired by fluid dynamics at the Cultural Programs of the National Academy of Sciences (CPNAS). The Traveling Gallery of Fluid Motion presents “Chaosmosis: Assigning Rhythm to the Turbulent,” which opened on Oct. 2 and will remain on view through Feb. 23, 2024, at the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) building, located at 2101 Constitution Avenue NW, Washington, D.C.
Fluid dynamics is a discipline that describes the flow of liquids and gases. This unique exhibition draws from past submissions to the American Physical Society (APS) Gallery of Fluid Motion, an annual program of the Division of Fluid Dynamics (DFD) that serves as a visual record of the aesthetic and science of contemporary fluid dynamics. For the first time, a selection of these past submissions has been curated into an educational art exhibition to engage viewers’ senses as they relate to chaosmosis, a term coined by the philosopher Félix Guattari in the 1990s, that conveys the idea of transforming chaos into complexity. It assigns rhythm to the turbulent, linking breathing with the subjective perception of time, and concluding that respiration is what unites us all.