Drawing on methods of experimental physics, the Basel-based artist explores ways of reimagining memory and constructing decentralised identities
Swiss artist Amanda E. Metzger has been selected for the eighth edition of Connect, a residency programme by Arts at CERN in partnership with the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia. Over a two-month residency at CERN, she will work alongside physicists and engineers to develop Reconstructing Reality, a project that examines how experimental physics can inform new ways of reimagining memories and building collective identities. Metzger’s artistic practice centres on network theory, authorship and the complexities of unquantifiable data. Working across installations, videos, objects and photographs, she explores how memories are created, measured, and shared.
My work will focus on how memories as data can be gathered, preserved and reimagined by drawing from scientific methods of data collection, storing and reconstruction
At the Large Hadron Collider, data acquisition, storage, and reconstruction are designed to handle vast volumes of data, with up to 40 million events from particle collisions processed per second. Detectors capture raw signals, which are filtered by a multi-level trigger system. Only around 1,000 events per second are kept for analysis. This selected data is stored, compressed, and shared across a global computing grid. In reconstruction, algorithms process signals into particle tracks, energies, and interaction points. This layered and lossy process enables physicists to extract meaningful insights from complex events, working towards potential discoveries or sharpening our understanding of nature.
Drawing on these methods, Metzger will engage with CERN’s scientific community to explore how such systems might inform the building of her decentralised, multi-bodied identity. The work will culminate in an online platform where users can navigate interconnected, reconstructed memories through an interplay of text, video, audio and graphics.
I am interested in looking at collaborative software frameworks that support and document large-scale research and how these might inform the construction of my decentralised body-mind
Now in its eighth edition, the Connect collaboration framework between Arts at CERN and Pro Helvetia has established itself as a vital platform for artistic engagement with physics and the scientific community at CERN. The programme has hosted artists such as AATB, Johanna Bruckner, Robin Meier and Vimala Pons for residencies at CERN, and offered shared, dual residencies at CERN and partner scientific institutions in India, Chile and South Africa to Rohini Devasher and Elisa Storelli, Shailesh BR and Lou Masduraud, Marcela Moraga and Dominique Koch, and Kamil Hassim and Ian Purnell.
