CERN - FATE MAPS - ENTANGLEMENTS - I Poor Orphan
Rogers, Kathleen (2017) CERN - FATE MAPS - ENTANGLEMENTS - I Poor Orphan. [Book art/Artist's book, Photography, Site-specific work]
I Poor Orphan, forms part of a photographic series, film essay and experimental writing made in response to visits to the site of the Large Hadron Collider, at CERN in Meyrin, Geneva in 2017 (The European Laboratory for Particle Physics). The folio offers poetic, conceptual and philosophical approaches to subatomic/high energy physics research within the Atlas experiment collision detector on the ground visitor site. This highly poetic folio integrates on-going thematic interests aligned with texts inspired by the philosophical writings on quantum physics by theoretical physicists Neils Bohr and Wolfgang Pauli. The work explores the philosophical notion of solipsism as an inward looking strategy based on the premise that nothing outside one’s own mind can be known to exist to connect counterintuitive interpretations of quantum high energy physics to poetics and the absolute limits of science.
A solipsistic approach allows for an exploration of the loop premise that we ourselves produce and compel the results of our experimental measurements through observation. The most renowned mysteries of quantum mechanics is the fact that the outcome of a quantum experiment can change depending on whether or not we choose to measure particular properties of the particles involved. It raises questions about the catalysing nature of observation casting doubt on the stability of the real. This highly conceptual approach allows me to integrate earlier thematic interests and work associated with the unity of being and the physics and theories of synchronicity.
The establishment of CERN in Geneva represents an extraordinary legacy of the nuclear atrocities of the second world war. Imbued with silence and the unknowable violence of collisions, gambling on war or peace and operating under its own exclusivity, the ground site is dominated by road blocks, security barriers and surveillance cameras. The Jura mountains send massive ragged clouds and shadows over green open spaces. The research buildings, pumping stations, cooling towers and parking lots, wide roads and off limit run down areas divide the site into distinct areas reminiscent of grey dystopian 70’s science fiction film set. Hidden satellite systems, social ordering, lack of access and perimeter high wire fences invoking secrecy and danger. I didn’t get to see the underground labyrinth of LHC and the work is imbued with a sense of trespass.
This work is part of the CERN - FATE MAPS - ENTANGLEMENTS FOLIO
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2889-665X
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