In Search of a Smoother Pebble

This project began as an Art/Science collaboration between the Departments of Art and Physics at Florida State University. It has grown to encompass faculty from Tallahassee Community College, the School of Dance at FSU and other organizations in the city. The title of our project is In Search of a Smoother Pebble.

The Principal Investigators are Harrison Prosper; Kirby W. Kemper Endowed Professor of Physics and Chair of CMS (Compact Muon Solenoid) Collaboration Board (CB) at CERN, and Professor Stephanie James, Department of Art. In part, the CMS Collaboration is engaged in looking for new particles at the LHC (Large Hadron Collider), but also and more philosophically, trying to find a deeper, more encompassing way to understand the world around us; the discovery of new particles is a necessary condition for progress in the field of high energy physics, which is also known as particle physics.

The initiative was brought to the Dept of Art by Harrison Prosper who in his role of Chair of the CMS CB is eager to bring the work at CERN to a wider audience through fruition of an exciting art@CMS project in the US in Tallahassee and staging a grand finale at CERN during the CMS Collaboration meetings in 2021-22. Since its inception and the onslaught of the COVID virus the project has shifted the timeline for the events. The project will now open first in CERN in June 2021 and following this the Tallahassee city-wide Art Trail will be scheduled.

The major activities planned are: a city-wide exhibition/installation/performance showcase in Tallahassee and an exhibition at CERN. The city-wide events will showcase the work of 20 artists/performers and graduate students created following the event in CERN during which the artists meet with the scientists and engineers working on the Collider and create a pop-up exhibition and series of performances. There will be lectures and workshops during the event that engage the public in the science at CERN.

The exhibition in Tallahassee will take the form of an ‘art/performance trail’ through the City with several satellite venues outside of the initial center and provide several educational opportunities along the trail for the public and most importantly school students – the public would be given a map, times and venues and would go in search of the events that engage them in the world of arts and science. The artworks will interpret the scientific experiments at CERN in very broad terms. The media and processes involved would encompass various art/installations/performance mediums from paintings, performances to full-projections onto buildings; a variety of participating venues would be ideal.