Astrophysicist collaborates on artwork that calculates the odds of your existence
Art image: Woven
‘Can we calculate, in one number, how impossible it is that I exist?’ Astrophysicist Yamila Miguel took this question by artist Thijs Biersteker seriously. This resulted in an artwork that holds up a ‘mirror’ to the universe and your very existence.
‘When you lie on your back in the grass at night and look up at the stars, you feel humble and special at the same time’, says Thijs Biersteker. ‘That is what this work is built to do. You are statistically impossible. And yet, here you are.’
The artwork, Mequation, scans you and calculates the improbability of your existence in a single number. Right then. Right there. Look into it another time and the number may be different.
Famous equation
For the calculation, Yamila Miguel built on the Drake equation, the legendary 1961 formula by Frank Drake that estimates the number of civilisations in our galaxy. She took it further, continuing the calculation all the way down to the individual. Now it’s a living equation, updating itself in real time with new data and constantly recalculating how small the probability is that you are here at all. The new data ranges from discoveries of exoplanets (using NASA data) to the number of babies being born (using UN data).
Improbability
The circular artwork is made up of 900 flipdots, small two-coloured segments that can flip from black to fluorescent. When you stand in front of it, the mirror scans you and captures your eye colour, height and exact location and begins its calculations. The flipdots clatter as they turn, and the work comes to life, taking you on a visual journey: from the universe to the mesmerisingly small probability that you exist at all. This is expressed as a number with more than 45 zeroes behind the decimal point.
Art and science
‘As scientists, we spend our careers chasing numbers that describe the universe. With Mequation, we built an equation that describes the visitor immersed in the universe. The same research that helps us hunt for life on exoplanets around distant stars becomes, for a moment, a mirror held up to a single human being, making you realise just how special you are. That shift, from the cosmic to the personal, is something only art and science together can achieve.’
Mequation was premiered at SXSW London 2026 in June. Further exhibitions are planned, but it is not yet known when and where.