Artwork:
Particle collision

Particle Collision is a laser-etched drawing by Arno Geens, carried into low Earth orbit aboard a satellite designed to study the effects of cosmic radiation in the thermosphere. The artwork is inscribed onto a sheet of polyimide film, a material commonly used in aerospace engineering for its resilience in extreme environments. Its visual language is drawn from historical photographs taken at CERN using early cloud chambers—experimental devices that made the invisible visible by capturing the trails of charged particles as they moved through supersaturated vapor. Arno reinterprets these ephemeral traces through reconstructed trajectories, weaving them into abstract compositions that hovers between scientific diagram and visual poetry.

In placing this work within a functioning radiation-detection mission, he creates a dialogue between past and present methods of observing the subatomic world. While the satellite gathers empirical data on the high-energy particles streaming through Earth’s upper atmosphere, Particle Collision offers a more speculative reflection—an artistic echo of the same forces, rendered with intentional ambiguity. The result is an artwork that not only references the aesthetics of scientific discovery but also becomes part of the environment it gestures toward. In doing so, it reclaims a space for wonder and imagination within the highly technical domain of space science.