A dark vortex in the middle of a water-filled basin emits prismatic bursts of rotating light, analogous to the radiant event horizon surrounding a spinning black hole. Descending into the eye of the vortex, a laser beam reaches an impassible singularity that casts a whirling circular shadow on the basin’s floor. The singularity lies at the bottom of a dimple on the water’s surface, the crown of the vortex, which acts as a concave lens focussing the laser beam along the horizon of the “black hole” shadow. Light is seemingly swallowed by the black hole in accordance with general relativity, yet leaks out as quantum theory predicts.

From 16 to 20 September 2025 from 17.00 to 22.00 at Cavo’

EVELINA DOMNITCH & DMITRY GELFAND