Gianni Motti
HIGGS, In Search of the Anti-Motti, 2005

CERN, Geneva
Performance, walk in the underground LHC tunnel (particle accelerator), 27 km.
Video, 5 h 50 min.
Photo: Ilmari Kalkkinen.
Courtesy of Galerie Mezzanin, Geneva.

On 20th May 2005, Gianni Motti compared himself to a proton. After going down into the LHC (Large Hadron Collider) circular tunnel, he walked 27 km at the average, unaccelerated pace of 5kph (about 6 hours). In comparison, particles turn around the ring 11.000 times in one second. This experiment is reported via a tracking shot. The artist walks along the world’s largest accelerator, empty and dull. The camera follows him at constant distance. He achieves in six hours something that no scientist had considered experimenting. In this very lengthy film, time disappears as if it no longer passed by. The walker flies off like a lost atom in the cycle of the universe. A strange uneasiness takes hold, the very uneasiness indeed that Einstein called relativity.

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