The Indeterminacy Festival continues tonight with this screening of Particle Fever and proceeds with a number of other events through the week. Workshops and lectures sponsored by the UB Technē Institute will be given by visiting international artists as part of the Indeterminacy Festival. The festival culminates on May 18 & 19 with two large-scale, site-specific performances at Silo City, with musicians, dancers, projections, and aerialists.
Over the course of the past year, the festival formed a collaboration with Physics faculty member Doreen Wackeroth. The idea that developed was to simulate, within performance, the particle collisions that take place within the Large Hadron Collider. Through choreography, dance, string, visual projections, and sound we are creating a simulation of conditions that existed shortly after the Big Bang and the exploration of the nature of matter—the epitome of Emergence. Particle Fever follows six scientists during the launch of the Large Hadron Collider, marking the start-up of the biggest and most expensive experiment in the history of the planet, pushing the edge of human innovation. As they seek to unravel the mysteries of the universe, 10,000 scientists from over 100 countries joined forces in pursuit of a single goal: to recreate conditions that existed just moments after the Big Bang and find the Higgs boson particle, potentially explaining the origin of all matter. But our heroes confront an even bigger challenge: have we reached our limit to understand why we exist? Following the film will be a Q&A with UB physicists Salvatore Rappoccio and Doreen Wackeroth.
Doreen Wackeroth is Professor and Associate Chair in the UB Physics Department. Her research focuses on theoretical particle physics and Collider Phenomenology. Salvatore Rappoccio is an Associate Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies in the UB Physics Department. His research focuses on experimental high-energy physics. Both are members of the High Energy Physics and Cosmology group at UB.
We hope that you will join us for these two screenings, which are integral to the ideas being explored in this year's festival.
