Munich

A new perspective: this work, Hoppera (1999), is by Patrick Hughes, who is part of the CERN project.

Some of Europe's leading conceptual artists are taking part in an extraordinary cultural experiment at CERN, the European Laboratory for Particle Physics.

The artists, who include Turner Prize winners Anish Kapoor and Richard Deacon, have been brought to CERN to learn about high-energy physics and will respond by creating an original piece of art during this year. These artworks will be exhibited at galleries across Europe next year in a roadshow called “Signatures of the Invisible” — a reference to the fact that subatomic events can only be described by their mathematical signatures.

So far, most of the artists seem to have been more impressed by CERN's physical environment, its engineering tools and exotic materials, than by the details of theoretic physics. After visiting CERN, Deacon said: “We need to listen to each other, but not necessarily to understand. The misunderstanding in both directions can be creative.”

British artist Patrick Hughes is known for his work on ‘reverse perspective’. His three-dimensional scenes appear to shift dramatically in perspective as observers move around them. Hughes says he may build a large three-dimensional model depicting the huge doors to CERN's subterranean experimental chambers, opening onto a view of the mountains that surround Geneva. Deacon, a sculptor, says he is toying with ways of exploring “the edges of things”. He is impressed with CERN's exotic materials ”not just for their properties, but also for their metaphoric significance”.

However, some of the artists are getting to grips with physics. Bartolomeu dos Santos, a Portuguese artist, has produced many pieces of public art by etching the surface of materials. He is using CERN's electron welding facility, normally used to produce distortion-free welds for high-precision instruments, to etch representations of event displays and theoretical formulae into steel.

Film-maker Ken McMullen, who is organizing the project, will be addressing another phenomenon of physics: crumpling. His film will record the way that metals exposed to the same pressure under the same conditions always crumple in a different way. “The only variable is time,” says McMullen.

CERN director-general Luciano Maiani admits to being bemused by the project, but says he is “happy to let it carry on around CERN's periphery”.