Arts at CERN

The exhibition features work by CERN artists in residence, including Ryoji Ikeda and Black Quantum Futurism

In March, CERN and Copenhagen Contemporary announced a three-year partnership through Collide, Arts at CERN’s flagship international residency programme. The first call for Collide Copenhagen invited artists from any country to submit their proposals for a residency between CERN and Copenhagen Contemporary (CC) dedicated to artistic research and artistic exploration, working side-by-side with physicists, engineers, and laboratory staff.

This announcement is followed by the opening of Yet, it moves!, Copenhagen Contemporary’s large new exhibition, which explores the theme of motion as an omnipresent phenomenon, raising our awareness of the many complex movement patterns in which we are all entangled. The exhibiting artists include Collide-winning artists Ryoji Ikeda and Black Quantum Futurism, Jakob Kudsk Steensen, Jenna Sutela, Ligia Bouton, Helene Nymann, Nina Nowak, Jens Settergren, Cecilia Bengolea, Cecilie Waagner Falkenstrøm and Nora Turato.

Since 2021, the artists have engaged in dialogue with researchers at the exhibition’s collaborators: Arts at CERN in Geneva; DARK at the Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen; the Interacting Minds Centre at Aarhus University, and ModLab (Digital Humanities Laboratory) at the University of California, Davis. These encounters between artists and scientists have produced artworks with perspectives ranging from particle physics and astrophysics, brain and cognitive sciences, anthropology, and technology and performance studies.

In CC’s biggest hall, Japanese artist and composer Ryoji Ikeda presents his monumental trilogy dataverse for the first time in Scandinavia. In three giant video projections, Ikeda composes a sensory explosion of images and sound, sampling open source data on motion obtained from scientific institutions, including CERN, NASA and the Human Genome Project. The huge audiovisual installation represents three worlds: the microscopic natural world of atoms, molecules, DNA and cells that is invisible to the human eye. The human world we live in on Earth with our brains and bodies, other organisms, cities, climates, internet, air traffic, satellites and so on. And finally, the macroscopic world – from our planet to the solar system, galaxies, the observable universe and potential multiverses.

Philadelphia-based collective Black Quantum Futurism present Instantly Local, Stretching Into Infinity—a neon sign sculpture at the Søpavillonen, a historic building at The Lakes in central Copenhagen. The 2o2o Collide-winning artists drew inspiration from their artistic research conducted at CERN and Barcelona. Instantly Local, Stretching Into Infinity is an exploration of the instantaneity of light and gravity, bridging the gap between the local and the boundless. As day transitions into night, the neon lights come alive, inviting observers to contemplate the nature of these fundamental forces, which shape our surroundings and extend infinitely into the universe.

The exhibition starts on 11 May with the symposium Yet, it Moves! Everything moves – around, above and within us. With participating artists, scientists and curators, the discussions will look behind the artworks in the exhibition and into complex phenomena such as cosmic motion, stardust, black holes, external sounds and the connection between quantum mechanics and the human brain. Yet, it moves! will remain ‘in motion’, with new works and conversations being introduced throughout the exhibition and extending into the Copenhagen cityscape, including the city centre, Copenhagen Airport, Nørrebro, the Inner Harbour and Søndermarken Park.