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IAN ANDREWS

THE SKETCHBOOK AND THE COLLIDER

DRAWING LINKS BETWEEN FINE ART AND PARTICLE PHYSICS

IN COLLABORATION WITH PROF. KOSTAS NIKOLOPOULOS

 

Detectors are really the way that physicists express themselves, to say something that you have in your guts. In the case of painters, it’s painting with sculptors, its sculpture and in the case of the experimental physicist its detectors! The detector is the image of the guy who designed it.
— Carlo Rubbia, particle physicist and inventor, 1989.

The Sketchbook and the Collider is an on-going collaboration with Prof Kostas Nikolopoulos from the particle physics group at University Birmingham and evolves from my residency at the University in 2018 culminating in the exhibition “The sketchbook and the Collider,” at the University and subsequent Arts Council funded exhibition at the Library of Birmingham entitled “Collision Event” in 2019.

The work takes as its starting point the search for equivalents between the primary artistic language of drawing and the elementary particles and their interactions. 

It comprises three main elements: The search for an intimate connection between pure visual language and elemental particle characteristics and interactions. Development of the use of moving image work to explore actual movement and interaction in a drawing context equivalent to the interaction of particles and finally it’s culmination in the development of performative pieces that involve “live” drawing and the cooperation, participation and “interaction” of artists, scientists and members of the public.