Choreographing sub-atomic particles to sweep from booster to synchrotron to Large Hadron Collider is one thing. Choreographing physicists and dancers to sweep around each other at CERN is quite another. But this is the task of Swiss choreographer Gilles Jobin, who is the second artist to win the international Collide@CERN competition for an artistic residency at CERN, following on the heels of the first prize-winner, German visual artist Julius von Bismarck. Be it with visual art or choreography, both have attempted a new style of interaction with scientists — a 'collision' of minds, if you like, observing the physicists and, most importantly, exchanging ideas with them as equals.
The choice of artist is crucial, demanding excellence in art that will match the excellence of the science. Unrelenting curiosity, a willingness to experiment and to think outside the box, an ability to recognize fruitful opportunities where others see only the mundane, steadfastness and intellectual rigour — all of these qualities define both scientists and artists, as do playfulness, poetry and the occasional legerdemain and bending of rules. Timing is also essential: artists who are set in their ways might be impermeable to new discoveries; those who are not sufficiently mature might be swayed or perhaps even awed too easily. And the final ingredient: a deep affinity for science, mathematics and technology, without which neither dialogue nor respect would be easy to establish.
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