Arts at CERN

Through the AEgIS is a space-time-lapse that explores how we interpret nature through the lens of science

The work draws on data captured by the AEgIS experiment at CERN, which investigates how antimatter responds to gravity. The video captures pions, protons and nuclear fragments flying out from ‘annihilation sites’–moments of interaction between matter and antimatter. These particles ionize a photographic plate that reveals their trajectories as tracks of varying sizes.

Using a special microscope with a shallow depth of field, the photographic image is re-captured in several stages; by shifting the focal plane in 2-micron increments and scanning across each layer in thousands of sections, a depth of forty layers in the emulsion is revealed, exposing details that would otherwise remain unseen to the naked eye.

Working with around 100,000 scans, Semiconductor re-constructed the photographic image to create an animation that re-introduces time into the data, revealing the rhythms and artefacts of the capturing process. The animation gradually zooms out from a single scan while moving through the layers, eventually revealing all the data. A large print version of Through the AEgIS presents all the data simultaneously with time removed.