Artists and Scientists Collide at CERN
On any given day, 2,000 scientists and engineers work at the European Nuclear Research Center (CERN) in Geneva, Switzerland. They’re analyzing data coming out of the Large Hadron Collider, the world's largest particle accelerator, which is trying to recreate the Big Bang in a series of tunnels underground.
It's not the kind of place where you would expect to find artists. But this summer, three artists who make up the digital arts collective Fragment.in spent several weeks there as part of CERN’s artist-in-residence program. When they first arrived, they were "bombarded with a lot," says Fragment.in member Marc Dubois. Their plan was to try to translate the science into an interactive art installation that could evoke the sense of awe that the scientists get from their experiments.
Since 2011, dancers, musicians, and filmmakers have spent time at CERN through a program called Collide@CERN. "I was surprised how much [the scientists] had the capability to talk to me about their ideas and their work,” says Jan Peters, a German video artist who joined the residency program in 2013. Peters went underground while the collider was shut down and filmed about 100 hours of footage inside the giant tunnels.
He and other artists gain a lot from the experience, but they also challenge the scientists. Theoretical physicist Subodh Patil, who worked with American sound artist Bill Fontana, says the experience changed his way of thinking about artists. "Bill had an almost explorer-like streak about him, which would have qualified him to be a scientist as well in another life."
