CERN is one of the world’s most important research laboratories located between Switzerland and France. With a population of over 10,000, the CERN Art and Science Summit was held at CERN with an interdisciplinary approach that brings together artists, academics and scientists annually. Inspired by the idea of artists and scientists joining forces and discovering common paths while contributing to society, the Summit’s talks are designed to discuss the processes from discovery to research, from production to sharing.
CERN has been operating since 1951 with the belief in the importance of building bridges between cultures, which opens the space to experience the methods and ways in which the fundamental questions about our universe are pursued by science. In the establishment phase, 12 countries such as Germany, Austria, Belgium, the United Kingdom, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Italy, Hungary, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Greece and Turkey are also taking part in the platform. CERN aims to push the boundaries of knowledge, develop accelerator and detector technologies that will benefit humanity, and bring together people from different cultures dedicated to science. The centre, which has hosted many Nobel Prize-winning studies to date, includes Carlo Rubia and Simon Van der Meer for discovering the W and Z bosons in 1984 and Georges Charpak for developing the multi-wire proportional chamber in 1992.
The Large Hadron Collider, designed in the 1980s, is at the centre of these experiments and is currently the world’s highest-energy particle accelerator. The Large Hadron Collider is a 26.7 km-long super magnet 100 metres underground, allowing 600 million protons to collide in a second. Since its foundation in the early 1970s, the Laboratory has been known as a place of inspiration and discovery, inviting artists to its facilities.
Art is instrumentalised, enabling forms of expression. As an abstract concept, art often involves productions practised to understand our environment, convey feelings and thoughts, or reflect the artist’s consciousness. On the other hand, science is an endeavour to explore our environment to find universal and undisputed truths. Art is generally considered to be inward-looking, while science is outward-looking. Is it possible to say that art is used to understand consciousness, while science is used to understand the external world? Although these two fields, which serve the progress of humanity, appear separately, the best example of their intersection can be considered the Renaissance Period. The ideas that emerged under the leadership of science became a source of inspiration and a trigger for groundbreaking works of artists during the Renaissance Period in the 15th century. This period is characterised by a renewed interest in and appreciation of Ancient Greek and Roman culture and a rediscovery of science and art. The interest in the science and philosophy of antiquity led to a significant advance in science and art during the Renaissance. It resulted in the Catholic Church recognising scientists’ ideas and promoting a new humanistic and pluralistic cultural sphere. During this period, they also made remarkable discoveries in geography, astronomy, mathematics and other sciences. These scientific advances deepened artists’ and thinkers’ perspectives on the world and the universe and influenced the content of art. Undoubtedly, names such as Galilei Galileo and Leonardo Da Vinci are among the milestones of this period. Developments in the field of mathematics encouraged artists’ search for new perspectives and opened space for technical questioning. Artists analysed the details of nature and human anatomy and reflected these observations in their works. The detailed examination of the human body made the figures in art more realistic and detailed. Michelangelo’s human figures on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel are a compelling example of the anatomy studies of the Renaissance period.
“The most beautiful thing we can experience is mysterious. This is the source of all true art and science.” — Albert Einstein.
CERN’s Arts at CERN department, which was set up to bring art and science together, works to foster intercultural dialogue with the support of a cultural steering committee led by curator Mónica Bello and including experts such as Elvira Dyangani Ose, director of MACBA, and Ulrike Erbslöh, director of Fondation Beyeler. From research-oriented artist residencies to on-site or remote events, Arts at CERN supports qualified projects that reduce the permeability between art and science and aim for social impact through its arts commissions programme. 2024 marks the 70th anniversary of CERN. For this reason, through a programme of extraordinary events, CERN is creating a common plane of sharing to shed light on the research on how the universe was formed and how it has worked for another 70 years.
The term “Fundamental Questions” refers to the fundamental and universal questions commonly used in philosophy and science, which aim to understand human existence, knowledge, ethics and the universe. These questions encourage deep thought and guide people in their search for meaning. They examine the source of existence, what knowledge is and how it is acquired, how people’s experiences of consciousness are formed, whether people really have free will, the nature of language and the universality of logic, the origin of ethical values, the limits of the universe, justice and equality. With the answers to questions and discussions on these issues, it aims to contribute to human progress in the search for meaning and knowledge accumulation. Organised with a similar motivation, the CERN Art and Science Summit was held on 30 January 2024 at the Sergio Marchione Auditorium as a unique meeting point of art and science, examining how we have built and will continue to build knowledge and understanding of fundamental questions. Internationally prolific artists and physicists highlighted the achievements of CERN’s forward-looking approach to art and creativity and the work of its art events, raising the challenges and opportunities of interdisciplinary interaction. The summit, also available online, shared ideas on how scientific imagination drives artistic expression and scientific breakthroughs — artists who participated in the CERN Arts Residency Programme 59. The panel titled “The Unanswered Questions” was held with the participation of Yunchul Kim, an interdisciplinary artist whose work was exhibited in the Korean Pavilion at the 59th Venice Biennale; Rosa Barba, a lens-based artist; Elisa Storelli, who builds her practice on the structurality of time; Chloé Delarue, known for her work based on the perception of reality; José-Carlos Mariátegui, writer, curator and technology entrepreneur; and Tamara Vázquez Schröder, experimental physicist. The panel, which took place in a friendly atmosphere and focused on the issues and productions of the artists during their residency at CERN, touched upon the positive impact and possibilities of diversity on research processes. Among the artists who think and produce on fundamental questions with the tools of a scientific approach, Yunchul Kim, who is also known for his electronic music production, was at the forefront of the works of Yunchul Kim, whose scattered practice, which intertwines science, technology, music, philosophy and poetry, examines the universe of material entanglement. Launched in 2014 to produce trans material works, Studio Locus Solus in Seoul has international prestige. In the following sessions of the summit, renowned voices from the world of science, such as 2004 Nobel Laureate David Gross, Djuna Croon, Gian Francesco Giudice and Tara Shears, discussed the evolution of particle physics and CERN’s significant contributions to the field over the last 70 years. The event concluded with a live performance of Enigma, a collaboration between composer Anna Þorvaldsdóttir and artist Sigurður Guðjónsson. Enigma, which has a grating aural pattern, is inspired by the concept of being ‘in-between’. Þorvaldsdóttir’s mesmerising and unstable sounds are combined by the string quartet of the Ensemble Phoenix Basel orchestra with Guðjónsson’s evocative imagery to create a channel for reflection on the way we relate to the whole of the universe we live in.
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This article was first published in Turkish on NFTIFY.com.tr and translated into English by NFTIFY.uk . You can follow NFTYFY on Instagram.com/nftify
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