In Ken McMullen's six-minute video loop Lumen de Lumine, filmed in an abandoned particle-accelerator tunnel at CERN, the European particle-physics laboratory in Geneva, a dancer in a cadmium-red dress swings a light bulb above her head, slowly letting out its flex.

At first she controls the bulb's movement, but as the flex lengthens, the bulb's increasing momentum is transferred to her body, which sways rhythmically to maintain balance. The bulb is the only source of light in the underground cavern, and when it moves behind her the woman is cast from light into darkness. The loop closes when she draws in the flex, puts down the bulb and the light is switched off.

On 9 February, in a preview of what it is hoped will be Europe's largest ever public art installation, the lonely figure will be projected on to the giant wall of the Torness nuclear power station in Scotland. The loop will play continuously through the night. The promoter, Scottish arts impresario Ricky DeMarco, is looking for funding for a year-long run.

Credit: K. MCMULLEN

The film was created for the ‘Signatures of the Invisible’ exhibition in 2000, consisting of artworks produced in a collaboration between CERN physicists and European artists (see Nature 410, 414; 2001). It has been remastered for this new setting, which adds its own dimensions to McMullen's reflections on quantum physics.

As the light shuts off at the end of the loop, the woman whispers “Sein oder nicht sein, das ist die Frage”. The opening line of Hamlet's most famous soliloquy is given in German, to acknowledge the German scientists who developed quantum theory. The film's seemingly simple balletic sequence mirrors the contradictory elements of the quantum world, where the precise position of subatomic particles can never be known for certain. Does the figure dance in the light or in the dark? Is her dress red or black? Neither; both. The nuclear power station represents another duality by reminding us that we can split the atom for good, or for evil.

Torness power station is positioned within sight of the main road and rail links between Edinburgh and London, used by some 16 million travellers each year. The travellers will never see the same image twice. Its clarity will change according to the weather and light conditions, and the image will also depend on the position from which it is viewed — a reference to Einstein's relativity theory, where length and time change according to speed.

A discussion of some of the issues of ‘Signatures of the Invisible’ between artist and poet John Berger and CERN physicists is available on Ken McMullen's DVD Art, Poetry and Particle Physics, part of his Pioneers in Art and Science series.