Diffraction is an experiment that sets the foundation for key theory and philosophy of physics, in particular the study of quantum mechanics.

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Diffraction describes the break up, bending or spreading of light as it encounters an obstacle or passes through a slit. An everyday example of diffraction can be seen on the surface of CDs as the tracks etched on the disc's surface act as small openings that light travels through.

As light, sound or water diffracts, it causes interference patterns. This is the overlapping of waves as they diffract. Donna Haraway considers interference patterns as a new way to approach knowledge-making practices. Rather than reflection, described by Haraway as a masculine practice of simply ‘placing the same elsewhere’, the overlapping of waves in diffraction resonates with multidisciplinary practice.(1) Karen Barad builds on Haraway’s theory with her methodology of reading diffractively, or reading insights through one another. (2) To read insights through one another is to look across fields of research, rather than limiting ourselves to reflections of our own practice.

As soon as I began to think about diffraction, I started to see diffraction - or interference - patterns everywhere in light rays from clouds, a CD falling out of an old book, water on the shore of Loch Lomond. These patterns made me think about the entangled nature of our world and what it is to study one discipline when so much connects us.

Stefanie Hessler's curatorial project surrounding Tidalectics is an example I look to when considering what diffractive reading can teach us. Tidalectics imagines an oceanic worldview, and brings together artistic-curatorial practice, law, feminism , oceanography and environmental studies. (3) Hessler also speaks about science-fiction in this study, with the techno-duo Drexciya - who were inspired by Afrofuturism - informing her exploration of the ocean as a body that connects.(4)

Rupturing disciplinary borders is, for me, an ethical curatorial practice as it also highlights those who have been left out of narratives. An example of this is the 2003 essay How has Feminism changed Physics? by physicist Amy Bug.(5) In this essay Bug calls for physics to open its borders and accept feminism. Bug's diffractive reading of physics, and attempt to bring feminism into a traditionally male dominated space, highlights the exclusions of the field.

Slow glass is a curatorial method that learns from these processes of reading diffractively. As a method that gathers learnings from multiple spaces, slipping between science-fiction and physics, and feminist and queer theory, slow glass dissolves borders and opens artistic-curatorial practice to the unexpected.

Image: Physics Videos by Eugene Khutoryansky, Diffraction interference patterns with phasor diagrams

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