- Artist
- Semiconductor
- Year
- 2018
- Medium
- Audiovisual installation
- Artistic Residency
- Collide
HALO is a large-scale artwork that draws viewers to inhabit the results of particle-collision experiments at the ATLAS Experiment at CERN
The work takes the form of a large cylinder that is illuminated and enveloped in the sound produced by data. It draws the viewer into its centre to inhabit data streams produced by particle-collision experiments taking place at CERN.
In 2015, the artists participated in a residency and began working with data captured by ATLAS, an enormous detector within the Large Hadron Collider. The physics performed at ATLAS probes and enhanced our current understanding of the building blocks of matter and their interactions, contributing to the theories that better describe our universe.
The particle-collision events that form the core data of HALO occur at close to the speed of light, and time frames are measured in millionths of a second. No one could possibly witness the events taking place within the detector. By accessing the experiment’s raw data, the artists have accessed the time sequences and slowed them down to enter the realm of human perception, allowing us to perform our own analyses and look for patterns and readings. The “space-points” thus presented reveal the paths of particles through the experiment as lines and spirals. The artists then interpret these artefacts to expose the beauty that transcends their intended use. Hundreds of thousands of these particle patterns play across the screens throughout the installation. Concurrently, we are surrounded by the auditory elements of the work. The sounds, tones, and sweeps of the metal wires being vibrated by magnets envelop us and occupy more of our sensory capacity, further pushing us into full immersion.
HALO has been conceived as an experiential reworking of the ATLAS detector, its experiments, and its data sets. The rotated cylindrical form and multiple cables evoke the apparatus’s architecture. The assemblage suggests the technology and craftsmanship associated with scientific endeavour. But here, the viewer occupies the space where there would be particle collisions, immersed within the streams and clouds of data, hunting for the patterns and associations that give meaning to these abstract phenomena.
