Covered with 12,000 photomultiplier tubes the Super Kamiokande neutrino observatory in Japan is the ultimate meeting of science and craft. A photomultiplier tube is an extremely sensitive converter of light to electricity (the opposite of a light bulb).
In this workshop participants made their own photomultiplier tubes to capture the invisible in their bedrooms. This 3 hour workshop was held by Dr Jonathan Perkin, High Energy Physics group, University of Sheffield and Nelly Ben Hayoun, creative director and designer of Super K Sonic Booooum at Manchester Metropolitan University, during Super K Sonic BOOOOum 2 Gold at the Manchester Science Festival. The result was a Domestic Super object, which had the property to capture the invisible. This was a mixture of complete fantasy and real product.
Workshop supported by the IOP- Institute of Physics.
Pictures by Laura Ben Hayoun