Uncertainty: A Portrait of the 2025 CERN Art and Science Summit

Who speaks in this episode?

• John Judiche (Referenced expert (CERN theorist mentioned by speaker))

What is discussed, and when

1. 0:00 – 3:00: CERN, negative capability
2. 3:00 – 6:00: CPT symmetry, Artificial Intelligence, shunata
3. 6:00 – 9:00: John Judiche, quantum culture

Notable quotes from "Uncertainty: A Portrait of the 2025 CERN Art and Science Summit"

• A half knowledge, a model of uncertainty which implies another half that's always hidden from view. That shadow half is located in what Keats imagines as a most holy location, a penetrum or innermost chamber of mystery.

  about negative capability · at 2:37

• The scientific concept of CPT with the culturally significant notion of colored people's time. The project aimed to confront and deconstruct racialized perceptions of time and…

  about CPT symmetry · at 4:12

• John Judiche, the head of the theory department here at SERN with whom I had a really beautiful conversation, uses sand dunes to explain how why we live in an unstable universe.

  about CERN · at 6:24

• There are huge gaps in our capacity to sense quantum phenomena. And bridging that gap is possibly one of the biggest and most uncertain challenges that quantum culture will have to tackle in various ways.

  about quantum culture · at 7:36

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

• John Judiche — Person · Referenced expert (CERN theorist mentioned by speaker) · 1 mention · first at 6:24
  Cited as a CERN theory leader who uses an accessible metaphor (sand dunes) to explain instability/uncertainty in the universe, aligning with the episode’s goal of bridging quantum concepts and cultural/artistic interpretation.
  John Judiche, the head of the theory department here at SERN with whom I had a really beautiful conversation, uses sand dunes to explain how why we live in an unstable universe.

Companies & orgs

• CERN — Company · Setting · 1 mention · first at 2:07
  Mentioned as a place where quantum physics experiments are conducted, linking science and art.

Concepts & topics

• CPT symmetry — Concept · Key argument · 1 mention · first at 3:51
  Used to explore varying scales and dimensions of time, connecting quantum physics with cultural perceptions of time.
• negative capability — Concept · Key argument · 1 mention · first at 2:35
  Presented as a model of uncertainty and acceptance of half-knowledge, linking poetry and quantum physics.
• shunata — Concept · Framework · 1 mention · first at 3:13
  Described as the recognition of nothingness or emptiness, central to an ancient way of knowing and acting.
  Recognition of nothingness or emptiness or what we call shunata is at the very heart of an ancient way of knowing and acting in the world. So not knowing is a way of knowing and acting. And the best.
• Artificial Intelligence — Concept · Strategy · 1 mention · first at 5:06
  Mentioned in the context of developing synthetic voice models and exploring new forms of artistic expression.
  I've been developing kind of instruments around my physical voice through AI through synthetic voice models. I have like trained so many different ones on my own voice. I'm.
• quantum culture — Concept · Framework · 1 mention · first at 7:52
  Described as a challenge to bridge the gap in sensing quantum phenomena, highlighting the intersection of science and culture.

Full transcript with timestamps

0:03 la to uncertainty is an invitation for the artist of our program and the scientist to be together. I I like to think that we are crossing thresholds and there we some passages and uh caverns and tunnels appear and we walk through them together in art and science.

0:43 Humans have not known about quantum mechanics until 100 years ago. But the universe has from the very beginning. We're just trying to understand how the universe copes with quantum mechanics and copes with uncertainty. One of the basic things that change our lives is normally the science that is based on curiosity, not necessarily to solve problems. Curiositydriven research is the one that has changed our lives uh radically for hundreds of years. One of those examples is quantum mechanics.

1:14 This year 2025, of course, has been declared the international year of quantum science. And as a curator that's worked quite extensively with the realms of the very small, whether it's particle physics or quantum mechanics, science describes the hidden architectures of the universe. And I believe that art like physics is a way of revealing it. Art helps us imagine quantum physics more deeply because as Fineman said, also needed is imagination.

1:46 Do you think about uncertainty? uh make some people a little scared and so but it's just part of life.

1:52 I'm here to talk to you about making a poem and what we might unmake in the process of making a poem. Poets are always reminding each other that the word poetry arrives out of an ancient Greek word for making and that the poem is at least ethmologically if not atmologically a made thing. This led me to be really interested in CERN kind of I guess I'm thinking about experimental language practice and experiments in caves brings me to kind of the experiments of of quantum physics in the ground. Also there's something about kind of exploring the mysteries in these dark spaces. In a letter written in 1816, Keats describes negative capability as an acceptance of a half knowledge, a model of uncertainty which implies another half that's always hidden from view. That shadow half is located in what Keats imagines as a most holy location, a penetrum or innermost chamber of mystery.

2:52 What would happen if one placed a bet on the idea that knowing nothing, the knowledge of nothingness, is the basis of wisdom? This is actually not a very new idea despite Richard Fineman even though it remains a surprising and unsettling one. Recognition of nothingness or emptiness or what we call shunata is at the very heart of an ancient way of knowing and acting in the world. So not knowing is a way of knowing and acting. And the best of art and the best of science is united in this appreciation of the unknown because that's what drives us. It allows us to imagine which is what makes the unknown known in our consciousness. It drives our curiosities. It motivates our dialogue, our conversation.

3:42 This link reinforced my understanding that time is not only a physical dimension, but it can also be a deeply inequitable social construct. My collective project CPT symmetry and violations was a exploration of those varying scales and dimensions of time and temporality spanning from the particle to the personal to the interpersonal to the communal to the global to the cosmic. Through that project, we wanted to extend a dialogue between the quantum realm and everyday realities by intentionally paralleling the scientific concept of CPT with the culturally significant notion of colored people's time. The project aimed to confront and deconstruct racialized perceptions of time and punctuality that have historically marginalized, stereotyped, and oppressed black communities like the ones that I come from. And in this light, quantum physics becomes a prismatic lens through which we can reimagine time itself not as a

4:35 rigid um inexorbable flow in a predetermined forward direction, but instead as a malleable dimension, open to reinterpretation and open to transformation. I've been developing um kind of instruments around my physical voice uh through AI through synthetic voice models. I have like trained so many different ones uh on my own voice. I'm very interested in how uh specifically voice is um modulated, you know, and I've been um training all these models, building kind of uh archival uh of those bodies I'm living or those selves I'm leaving behind. They are built on improvisations and using all these tools to compose and creating patterns, creating um uh landscapes of uh coral landscapes where my voice is not like a the leader in most of them. It's just like a part of that choir.

6:01 Inspired by the dual quality of light, we propose an experiment of our own. A rehearsal in duality, an experiment in doubling, in thoughtful inconsistency. For this first rehearsal, we offered an exercise in thinking through and with two kinds of experimental apparatuses that allow for the recording of light, chronology, and observation. John Judiche, the head of the theory department here at at SERN with whom I had a really beautiful conversation, uh, uses um, sand dunes to explain how why we live in an unstable universe.

7:00 there are other ways of thinking about time that are not tied to linear modes of history or linear modes of cause and effect but you can look at other places right and so not using the master's tool the master's tool is the clock itself um and I talk about that history but using other tools um in order to get to a reality where we can thrive and be yeah be more abundant. And the overarching thread was that time is not defined in any specific way in in their work. It really depends on the context. It really depends on the question.

7:36 There are huge gaps in our capacity to sense quantum phenomena. And bridging that gap is possibly one of the biggest and most uncertain challenges that quantum culture will have to tackle in various ways.

7:57 In one phrase, the the choir sings, if we could start with something, what would what would it be? And this question simply simp simple but disturbing is the seed of a larger reflection um on how can we in the midst of uncertainty stop to think instead of from the end of the world about the beginning

8:21 uncertainty we find potential um for different world views and based on difference essentially

8:28 as a convenor of an art science indigenous knowledge context Next I was struck by the question of an instrument and a machine and in the connect residency one of the things that came was what type of engines you know these are radioar array telescopes in South Africa they are put in ancient landscapes filled with um sonic rocks that have or paintings that are you know hundreds if not thousands of years old. So how do we come up with ways of thinking about them in in in a more interesting way?

9:05 The alorn with its long flare shape becomes more than a musical instrument but a conduit, a resonant, a resonator of space and time. H explores the trumpetlike shape geometries across scales from microscopic to cosmic. Experimental noise music like the forms explored in hum is rooted in vibration, reverberation, and amplification. Just as wind instruments shape and transform breath, and just as black holes bend and manipulate light, noise stretches and distorts the fabric of sound itself. Heat.

10:03 Heat.

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "Uncertainty: A Portrait of the 2025 CERN Art and Science Summit"?

John Judiche (Referenced expert (CERN theorist mentioned by speaker)).

What is discussed in "Uncertainty: A Portrait of the 2025 CERN Art and Science Summit"?

In order: 0:00 CERN, negative capability; 3:00 CPT symmetry, Artificial Intelligence, shunata; 6:00 John Judiche, quantum culture.

What is mentioned in this CERN episode?

7 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including CPT symmetry, CERN, negative capability, shunata, Artificial Intelligence, John Judiche. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "Uncertainty: A Portrait of the 2025 CERN Art and Science Summit"?

The episode runs 11 min; the transcript is about 1,274 words in 16 timestamped sections.

More from CERN

• All analyzed episodes
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