Arts at CERN’s residency programme, Collide Copenhagen, culminated in the Soft Robots exhibition at Copenhagen Contemporary, showcasing works by Joan Heemskerk, Alice Bucknell, and Martyna Marciniak, alongside a new commission by Nanna Debois-Buhl. The artists, selected across the three editions of the programme (2023-2025), undertook residencies at CERN and the Niels Bohr Institute, developing projects informed by exchanges with CERN’s scientific staff. Heemskerk’s work explores a reimagining of the programming string Hello, world! within a speculative quantum internet, while Bucknell’s cooperative video game, Small Void, draws on concepts of quantum entanglement and utilises shifting soundscapes to create an embodied experience of physical paradoxes.
Arts and Scientific Exchange
The exhibition, Soft Robots, currently at Copenhagen Contemporary, features artworks resulting from collaborations between artists and CERN’s scientific community, offering perspectives on how research and technology influence our understanding of the world. These projects stem from the Collide Copenhagen programme, a residency initiative established by Arts at CERN in partnership with Copenhagen Contemporary, running from 2023 to 2025. Artists Joan Heemskerk, Alice Bucknell, and Martyna Marciniak were selected through three editions of Collide, undertaking residencies at both CERN in Geneva and the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen, as well as Copenhagen Contemporary.
Joan Heemskerk’s work, presented as Hello, world!, explores the concept of a universal language, reimagining the programming string to transcend intergalactic and interspecies communication barriers potentially. Her sculptural piece, entangled binary network (Hello, world!), utilises entangled fields of black and white balls under ultraviolet light to exchange the phrase within a hypothetical quantum internet network. At the same time, her video NO MATTER features CERN’s emulsion-scanning microscopes and scientists’ reflections on matter. The video footage is processed using the Hough line transform, a computer vision technique originally employed in physics for reconstructing particle trajectories, which Heemskerk repurposes in her artistic exploration.
Alice Bucknell’s cooperative video game, Small Void, was conceived through dialogue with theoretical physicists and draws inspiration from quantum entanglement and black holes. The game features two players navigating interconnected worlds through non-verbal communication, utilising shifting soundscapes and haptics to create an affective interface, described by Bucknell as an embodied means of engaging with the paradoxes of physics and the limits of language, demonstrating a novel application of scientific principles within the realm of interactive art and furthering the potential for arts and innovation.
Exploring New Languages of Matter
Nanna Debois-Buhl’s new commission joins the works of Heemskerk, Bucknell, and Marciniak at the exhibition, extending the scope of the collaborative projects initiated through the Arts at CERN programme. For over a decade, Arts at CERN has supported artists in developing new works through exchanges with CERN scientists, engineers, and staff, fostering interdisciplinary dialogue. The programme facilitates a unique environment where artistic exploration intersects with the forefront of scientific research.
Bucknell’s game, Small Void, employs shifting soundscapes and haptics, creating what she terms an affective interface, representing an embodied engagement with the paradoxes of physics and the limits of language. Two players navigate interconnected worlds through non-verbal call and response mechanics, highlighting the game’s design principles rooted in concepts of quantum entanglement and black holes, and demonstrating a novel application of scientific principles within the realm of interactive art and furthering the potential for arts and innovation.
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