collider

Video in the Collider exhibition is used to deliver a theatrical storytelling experience for the visitor and to augment the wider exhibition environment.

The exhibition has a narrative journey from the lecture hall of CERN (Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire) down into the LHC (Large Hadron Collider) and the particle detectors that surround it.  This journey begins by announcing the discovery of the Higgs Boson with a video displayed on a 13m wide, 3m high curved screen.  Using such a large curved screen envelops the audience in the experience by filling their peripheral vision with images from around CERN.

As you move through the exhibition you meet various real world scientists and engineers who emerge from the walls and talk directly to you about their work at CERN.  This gives the audience a very direct experience of what life is like first hand in this curious place.

Next you come to one of the highlights of the exhibition, the Particle Collision.  This was our largest design challenge: how do you visualise something you can’t actually see and scientists themselves can only see through graphs of electromagnetic activity?  After visiting CERN three times, talking to scientists and collaborating with NRS we arrived at a 3 minute journey, presented on a circular screen, 7m in diameter with 270º of projection that put the viewer in the centre.