‘God particle’ collides with art and society this Sunday

Last night’s announcement of the discovery of the Higgs boson, or ‘God particle’, will collide with art and society on Sunday 8 July. ‘Colliding Ideas: Art, Society and Physics’ is a free public symposium, to be held at RMIT University in Central Melbourne from noon-5 pm.

The symposium will address the social and creative parameters of the physical sciences, taking inspiration from the 36th International Conference on High Energy Physics, also in Melbourne this week, where the discovery of the ‘God particle’ was announced. It will feature key speakers from the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) and the Australian Network for Art and Technology, alongside contemporary media and fine arts practitioners and theorists.

Symposium organiser, Chris Henschke, Artist in Residence at the Australian Synchrotron and Lecturer in the School of Media and Communication at RMIT, said Colliding Ideas would explore the dimensions of physics and ask what is going on in there, how it relates to our social world and how it affects us culturally and physically.

“And, in such contexts, how do the perspectives of physicists relate to and differ from those of artists and visual communicators who use physics-based technologies?” he said.

A series of talks and audiovisual presentations will be followed by a panel discussion and a question and answer session.

Registration starts at 11.30 am and a light lunch and refreshments will be provided. For more information and to register your interest, visit www.rmit.edu.au/collidingideas.