Uncertainty: CERN Art and Science Summit (2025)

The CERN Art and Science Summit celebrates CERN’s forward-thinking approach to arts and creativity. Curated annually by Arts at CERN, the event builds on its inaugural edition in 2024. This year’s theme, Uncertainty, aligns with UNESCO’s 2025 International Year of Quantum Science and Technology, marking a century since the foundational discoveries of quantum physics. Under this thematic framework, the Summit convened figures from art, literature, philosophy, science, and music to explore the influence of quantum physics on contemporary culture through a programme of keynotes, conversations, performances, and film screenings. Speakers included Luis Álvarez-Gaumé, Director of the Simons Center for Geometry and Physics at Stony Brook; Mónica Bello, Head of Arts at CERN; Frédérick Bordry, former CERN Director for Accelerators and Technology and Chair of the CERN Cultural Advisory Board; poet Holly Corfield Carr; Honor Harger, Director of ArtScience Museum; artist and writer Rasheedah Phillips of Black Quantum Futurism; artist Shuddhabrata Sengupta of Raqs Media Collective; and thinker Jalal Toufic. Arts at CERN is the Laboratory’s arts programme. A renowned platform for fostering dialogue between artists and scientists, Arts at CERN explores the cultural significance of fundamental research. Jalal Toufic’s contribution, “A Hitherto Unrecognized Apocalyptic Photographer: The Universe,” which was not included in the recording owing to his preference not to appear on video, is part of Forthcoming, 2nd ed. (Berlin: Sternberg Press / e‑flux journal, 2014), which can be downloaded from the author’s website: www.jalaltoufic.com