Boedi Widjaja

Cosmic Strangers, Cardinal Nodes

2025. Sculpture: Stainless steel, meteorite disc, geiger counters, electronic sensors, Arduiono board with computer code, 1m x 0.4m x 1.2m; and augmented reality.

This hybrid installation consists of a disc-shaped metal sculpture with an augmented reality projection of a four-dimensional hypercube, exploring poetic encodings, hyperdimensionality, and cosmic time.

The sculpture functions as a muon tracker, detecting the cosmic particles in real time using paired Geiger counters, a lead sheet, and open-source code. Embedded within is a 4.56-billion-year-old Muonionalusta meteorite, among Earth’s oldest, featuring a Widmanstätten pattern—an extraterrestrial crystalline signature formed over millions of years. On the reverse, 28 sets of four-digit codes encode the Tang Dynasty poem 浪淘沙 (“Waves Swirling Sand”) in Chinese telegraphic code. With each passing muon, the tracker translates the poem into Morse code signals.

Above, in augmented reality, a hypercube—or tesseract—floats. Extending the principles of a cube into four dimensions, it remains beyond full human perception. The hypercube first appeared in Boedi’s Path. 13, Quaver Cipher (2023) as a geometric cipher, where the artist translated Chinese telegraphic codes into a pulsating hyperdimensional form, transforming language into movement.

Part of public art Path. 15, Cosmic Strangers.

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