Worlds Collide is a live audiovisual performance integrating field recordings and imagery from CERN’s Large Hadron Collider with real-time generative systems. The work asks how quantum phenomena—typically accessible only through abstract models—can be translated into audiovisual form through computational processes.
The work draws on research in sonification and visualisation, where sound is framed as a mode of knowing model-based sonification engages underlying systems, and relationships between sensory modalities shape scientific communication. It also reflects particle physics practice, where phenomena are encountered through instrument-derived visualisations.
While these strands establish sound and image as interpretive modalities, they are typically developed independently. This project asks how a unified audiovisual system might integrate these modalities within a broader cultural context of scientific practice.
The project demonstrates a method for integrating scientific models and data within a unified audiovisual system. In Worlds Collide, principles such as interference and resonance are embedded as generative processes within the visual domain, coupled with an audio layer combining field recordings, sonified data, and musical material. Audio features modulate the behaviour and intensity of visual phenomena.
The work incorporates elements acknowledging the cultural and human dimensions of science while supporting a coherent aesthetic experience. It contributes a practice-based account of how audiovisual systems can translate complex scientific concepts into perceptual experiences that complement scientific explanation.