HIGGS, IN SEARCH OF THE ANTI-MOTTI

BY GIANNI MOTTI

ITALY 2005

HOW CAN WE COMPREHEND PARTICLES TRAVELLING 27km 11,000 TIMES IN ONE SECOND?

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN in Switzerland is the world's largest particle accelerator, and the largest machine ever built. Scientists use the 27km circular tunnel to study the smallest of units of matter by firing subatomic particles through it at close to the speed of light. During his residency at CERN, artist Gianni Motti embarked on a unique journey, shown in this video, and walked the entirety of the tunnel. The trip took him nearly six hours - protons can cover the same distance 11,000 times in one second.

ABOUT

Gianni Motti is a conceptual artist who contextualizes ready-made objects in unexpected ways in works of sculpture, video, and site-specific installations, inflected with what has been called “disarming simplicity”.