Circuit Training

A foray into the world of the Large Hadron Collider
An exhibition of the University of Applied Arts Vienna (Art & Science and Site-Specific Art) in cooperation with CERN (art@CMS and HEPHY – Institute of High Energy Physics).

Maybe some of you are familiar with the term ‘Circuit Training’. It refers to a programme of physical activities that work each section of our bodies individually. When one circuit of the programme is done, either through coercion or (free) will, we begin the first exercise again for the next circuit. In order to probe the fundamental structure of the universe, physicists have implemented a sophisticated circuit training for the basic constituents of matter: accelerators boost beams of particles to high energies before the beams are made to collide with each other. Detectors observe and record the results of these collisions. We assume that those particles follow the instructions of physicists with a mixture of obedience and free will…
In the context of the cooperation with art@CMS and HEPHY (Institute of High Energy Physics), students of Art & Science and Site-Specific Art have explored the many facets that a large and multinational institution like CERN (European Organisation for Nuclear Research) encompasses. The wide-ranging investigations go from the Large Hadron Collider to the small print of politics and economy, from particle accelerators to solid bureaucracy, from the Big Bang to the growth of conspiracy theories. While roaming around CERN and becoming detectors ourselves, several questions started circulating. How do these experiments and the images they produce transcend beyond screens and light beams into different states of matter and the realities we live in? How will our artistic strategies develop in relation to the biggest camera and microscope on our planet?
The outcomes are presented in the group exhibition at das weisse haus.
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