Audemars Piguet Unveils Halo, a New Immersive Installation by Semiconductor

AUDEMARS PIGUET UNVEILS HALO, A NEW IMMERSIVE INSTALLATION BY SEMICONDUCTOR

THE 4th AUDEMARS PIGUET ART COMMISSION WILL BE PRESENTED AT ART BASEL IN BASEL, JUNE 2018

The artist-duo Semiconductor, pictured left, in the studio with HALO. Images courtesy of the artists and Audemars Piguet

Press Conference: Tuesday 12 June, 6:30pm-7:00pm (RSVP to [email protected]) Talk: A Conversation with Semiconductor and Mónica Bello, with CERN Scientist John Ellis. Moderated by Artsy’s Matthew Israel | Wednesday 13 June, 6:30pm-7:30pm (RSVP to [email protected]) Public Opening Hours: 13-17 June | 10:00am-9:00pm Location: Messeplatz, Hall 4U, Basel, Switzerland

Le Brassus, 21 May 2018: Audemars Piguet is delighted to unveil details of its 4th Art Commission, HALO, which will be exhibited during Art Basel in Basel, Switzerland, from 13-17 June 2018. This year, the Audemars Piguet Art Commission has been conceived and executed by British artist-duo Semiconductor, Ruth Jarman and Joe Gerhardt, in collaboration with guest curator Mónica Bello, Spanish curator and head of Arts at CERN, the European Laboratory for Particle Physics in Geneva.

Audemars Piguet collaborates each year with a selected curator and emerging or mid-career artist to realise a new artwork that is premiered during one of Art Basel’s three international shows. The aim is to amplify the artist’s unique vision, while using the complexity and precision inherent in watchmaking as the artist’s stimuli. This year, Mónica Bello helped select Semiconductor whose work reflects the continuing exploration of these themes, celebrating a dialogue between contemporary art, science, and technology.

Titled HALO, the large-scale, site-specific artwork will present visitors with an artistic interpretation of the ATLAS experiment at CERN. The large-scale, immersive experience will allow viewers to better understand subatomic nature and the complex phenomena taking place at the CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Artists-in-residence at CERN for two months in 2015, Semiconductor have used raw data from the ATLAS experiment in their work. HALO takes the form of a ten-metre-wide cylinder-shaped structure that is entirely surrounded by vertical piano wires. Standing four metres tall, the interior of the installation is encircled by a 360-degree screen on which visitors can observe kaleidoscopic data projections generated by a series of slowed-down subatomic particle collisions that ordinarilly occur almost at the speed of light. As they hit the screen, the animated data points also trigger small hammers to hit the surrounding piano wires, emiting an all-encompassing vibration that resonates throughout the artwork, to be experienced both acoustically and physically by visitors.

The installation marks the first time an artist has received permission to work directly with raw data generated by the ATLAS experiment, thanks to the involvement of Audemars Piguet and CERN.

Semiconductor say, ‘We are interested in the unknown and finding out about who we are as humans through what we don’t know. Science just happens to be the medium through which we do that. We hope visitors to HALO will be humbled by the immersive environment, transcending the scientific aims of the data.’

Following the established approach of the annual Art Commission, the artists were invited to Audemars Piguet’s home in Le Brassus, Switzerland, during the artwork’s development to spend time with the Manufacture’s watchmakers and begin to conceptualise the artwork. During their visit, Semiconductor noted many similarities between the watchmaking workshops and the laboratories at CERN. ‘They’re both operating at the limits of what is physically and humanly possible; the watches on a minuscule scale, where aids are needed to see the parts required, and at CERN, at the other end of the spectrum, where the limitations become how to manoeuvre, install and run experiments at such a large scale.’

Mónica Bello, guest curator of the 4th Audemars Piguet Art Commission, says, ‘I am incredibly excited for the opportunity to realise HALO, and to be working with Semiconductor once again after their residency. This is the first time CERN is featured in an exhibition at Art Basel and I am grateful to Audemars Piguet for the invitation to work together. Ruth and Joe have created an immersive installation that conveys fundamental research with innovative ideas and artistic creativity in an extraordinary artwork. HALO is an opportunity for visitors to see how scientists and artists work together, inspiring each other and bringing to life unique visions of our world.’

Olivier Audemars, Vice President of the Board of Directors, says, ‘It amazes and excites me to see how Semiconductor explore how we see and experience the natural world. They help us to see things differently. And they bring to life the precision and complexity of particle physics and art. As a company, it is fundamental for Audemars Piguet to continue supporting innovative artists like Semiconductor, so we can better understand our own world and our own work.’

Release & visuals available under: https://audemarspiguet.picturepark.com/Go/qJ9x77DS

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Notes to Editors

Audemars Piguet Audemars Piguet is the oldest fine watchmaking manufacturer still in the hands of its founding families (Audemars and Piguet). Since 1875, the company has written some of the finest chapters in the history of Haute Horlogerie, including a number of world firsts. In the Vallée de Joux, at the heart of the Swiss Jura, numerous masterpieces are created in limited series embodying a remarkable degree of horological perfection, including daring sporty models, classic and traditional timepieces, splendid ladies’ jewellery-watches, as well as one-of-a-kind creations. www.audemarspiguet.com

Audemars Piguet and Art Audemars Piguet has always sought to integrate creative vision with superb artistry and technical mastery. Pursuing its commitment to ingenuity, innovation, and a spirit of independence, Audemars Piguet formed a partnership with Art Basel in 2013, supporting the world’s premier contemporary art shows in Hong Kong, Basel and Miami Beach. Since, Audemars Piguet has presented innovative concepts at all three Art Basel shows, inviting artists to creatively interpret Audemars Piguet’s heritage and origins.

At the crux of this involvement is the Audemars Piguet Art Commission. The Commission, announced in May 2014, draws inspiration from the craftsmanship and technical excellence inherent in Audemars Piguet’s legacy of watchmaking. Every year, an artist- curator duo is selected to realise a new artwork which explores complexity and precision, while enlisting contemporary creative practice, complex mechanics, technology, and science. By inviting artists to push the limits of technical virtuosity and scientific ingenuity, the Audemars Piguet Art Commission forges a link between the traditions of Haute Horlogerie and Art. Recipients are given carte blanche to realise each Audemars Piguet Art Commission. Audemars Piguet provides full financial support for each commission, in addition to specialised expertise required to realise an artwork.

The first Commission, unveiled to coincide with Art Basel in Basel 2015, was created by Swiss artist and composer Robin Meier, and curated by Marc-Olivier Wahler. Synchronicity explored the underlying mathematical rules of self-organisation among seemingly unrelated components: fireflies, computers, crickets, sounds and electromagnetic pendulums. In 2016, Audemars Piguet announced Sun Xun as the second artist for the Audemars Piguet Art Commission. Considered one of China’s rising young talents, Sun Xun unveiled on the oceanfront at Art Basel in Miami Beach 2016 a large-scale immersive bamboo installation and 3D film titled Reconstruction of the Universe, comprised of tens of thousands of hand-carved woodblocks.. The following year, Los Angeles-based, multidisciplinary artist Lars Jan was selected for the 3rd Audemars Piguet Art Commission. His large-scale Slow-Moving Luminaries installation, curated by Kathleen Forde, was also realised on the oceanfront at Art Basel in Miami Beach 2017; it explored topics of oscillations, including time, memory and the changing climate.

Parallel to the Commission, Audemars Piguet supports annual projects whereby artists create works that offer their own, highly personal interpretations of the company’s cultural and geographical origins. Conceived on a smaller scale when compared to the Commission, these projects testify to the deep and fertile dialogue between two distinct areas of creative endeavour— contemporary artists and watchmakers—and they are emblematic of the company’s most deeply held values. In 2013, Audemars Piguet commissioned the first of these projects: new photographic works by British photographer Dan Holdsworth. It also worked with Galerie Perrotin on Curiosity, a pop-up installation by French art duo Kolkoz for Art Basel in Miami Beach 2013. At Art Basel’s 2014 show in Hong Kong, Audemars Piguet unveiled a new panoramic film, Measure, by Austrian videographer Kurt Hentschläger. For Art Basel’s 2014 show in Miami Beach, Audemars Piguet contributed to an international sensation by partnering with the Peabody Essex Museum to co-present Theo Jansen’s Strandbeests, animal-like kinetic sculptures harnessing wind power to walk along the seashore in Miami Beach. In 2015, Audemars Piguet presented an eco-wall of living mosses combined with a sound installation titled Wild Constellations by Geneva-based artist Alexandre Joly. In 2016, the brand presented its new exhibition at the Yuz Museum in Shanghai, which displayed an original video-work, Circadian Rhythm, by Chinese artist Cheng Ran. Starting in 2016, Sebastian Errazuriz’s dynamic, immersive lounge designs have complemented Audemars Piguet’s presentation in the lounge at each Art Basel show. This year’s design, titled Foundations, is the final in a trilogy of concepts by the Chilean-born, New York-based artist and designer, each based on a natural element found in the Vallée de Joux. Throughout 2018, Errazuriz’ design is being shown in tandem with a new photographic series titled Remains: Vallée de Joux by London-based Italian artist Quayola, who uses film technologies to depict Audemars Piguet’s origins.

About Semiconductor Semiconductor is British artist-duo Ruth Jarman and Joe Gerhardt. Working collaboratively over more than twenty years, the pair creates works that push the boundaries of the moving image as a visual language. Through their immersive installations and screen- based projects, they explore the material nature of our world, and how our experiences get shaped by the lens of science and technology.

Many of their works have been developed during fellowship opportunities, which have taken them into laboratories where they can observe how scientists create an understanding of the material world, including at CERN in Geneva; the Department of Mineral

Sciences at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C.; the Gulbenkian Galapagos Artists’ Residency; and the NASA Space Sciences Laboratory at the University of California at Berkeley.

Semiconductor’s works are part of the permanent collections of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C.; the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris; and the Fundació Sorigué in Lleida, Spain. Their projects have been exhibited and screened globally, including at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, the Venice Biennale, FACT in Liverpool, the Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Center, the Sundance Film Festival, and International Film Festival Rotterdam. http://semiconductorfilms.com/data/about/

About Mónica Bello Mónica Bello is a Spanish curator and art historian. Over the last fifteen years she has curated exhibitions and events internationally. In her projects, she discusses the way artists instigate new conversations around the role of science and technology and its impact in society. Since 2015, Mónica Bello has been head of Arts at CERN, the European Laboratory for Particle Physics. As the first curator at CERN, she has strengthened synergies between the laboratory and the international cultural scene by supporting numerous artists’ research and explorations, and by fostering the involvement of scientists in art initiatives worldwide. From 2010 to 2015 she was the artistic director of VIDA, the international award organised by Fundación Telefónica, Madrid. From 2008 to 2010, she oversaw the Department of Education at LABoral Centro de Arte, Gijón, Spain. As an internationally recognised figure within art and science networks, Bello is a regular speaker at conferences and participates in selection committees, advisory boards, and mentorship programs. https://arts.cern/welcome

About Art Basel Founded in 1970 by gallerists from Basel, Art Basel today stages the world's premier art shows for Modern and contemporary art, sited in Basel, Miami Beach and Hong Kong. Defined by its host city and region, each show is unique, its individual character reflected in the participating galleries, artworks presented, and the content of parallel programming produced in collaboration with local institutions for each edition.

Art Basel’s engagement has expanded beyond art fairs through a number of new initiatives. In 2014, Art Basel launched its Crowdfunding Initiative which has catalysed much-needed support for outstanding non-commercial art projects worldwide and helped garner pledges in excess of USD 2 million in support of around 70 art projects from around the globe – from Bogota to Ho Chi Minh City, San José and Kabul. For Art Basel Cities, launched in 2016, Art Basel is working with selected partner cities to develop vibrant and content-driven programmes specific to the individual city. Connecting them to the global art world through Art Basel's expertise and network, Art Basel Cities supports its partners to develop their unique cultural landscape. For further information, please visit artbasel.com.