CERN –  The Sense Of Beauty

a documentary film by Valerio Jalongo
Switzerland, Italy 2017; o.v. Italian, English; sbt. English

Festival & Prize

Visions du réel Nyon 2017 – compétition Helvétiques official selection

Sinossi

What can there be in common between the wonderful figures of animals painted by hand on the walls of a cave in southern France and the subatomic particle research carried on in the great underground loop at CERN?
The images left by our ancestors are fragments of a language that seemed lost forever ­– the language of animism that enabled primitive man to be a part of the energy that animates all things. Today, however, in a deep underground cavern in Switzerland, ATLAS – at a weight equivalent to 100 Boeing 747s by far the biggest “camera” ever made by man – is producing images which capture the same mysterious energy.
The 35,000 years that separate those images tell the story of the spiritual essence of man and his rapport with nature. A rapport that has been lived in fear, in shared experience, in destructive force, such that now it is abundantly clear that man may not be able to halt the global warming which threatens his only habitat – the Earth. god particles is an enquiry into that rapport, combining the language of art with the language of science.
Uncovering the secrets of the great underground laboratories at CERN, we show how beauty and harmony are guiding principles for scientists as well as artists. Seeing the images and hearing the sounds that subatomic particles produce, we come closer to laws of physics where the same dialectic between symmetry and asymmetry holds true that we find in every work of art, that we can trace back to the very origins of our universe.
Following the discovery of the Higgs boson, CERN has confirmed its reputation as a place where human knowledge confronts the mystery of our existence at the highest possible level: we will be putting to CERN’s scientists and physicists the great questions faced in the past by philosophers and mystics – about the universe, our origins, our destiny. Of these men and women of science, some have faith in God, some believe only in the laws of physics and in mathematical formulae. But almost all recognize that, in order to understand the elusive nature of matter and the cosmos, they must cultivate their sixth sense: the sense of beauty.

Credits

HD Pictures