Suzanne Treister
2022


Scientific Dreaming

Scientific Dreaming is a project which attempts to open and expand the unconscious imagination of scientists in order to envisage positive futures based on hypothetical scientific breakthoughs and their potential outcomes for this world and beyond, whilst exposing potential risks attached to related technological advances.

The first component of Scientific Dreaming consists of 14 narrative plot diagrams made during a series of science-fiction writing workshops I carried out individually with scientists at CERN, Geneva during the summer of 2022.

The second component is a series of diagrams derived from specific aspects of the CERN scientists' plot diagrams.

The final stage of the project consists of the science-fiction short stories written by the scientists.
These stories will be published in summer 2023 in a book celebrating 10 years of Arts at CERN.

The background component of the project takes the form of images of flowers pressed inside the book, 'Dream Symbols of the Individuation Process: Notes of C. G. Jung's Seminars on Wolfgang Pauli's Dreams', a text which intertwines the arts and sciences through an analysis of the subconscious mind of the CERN physicist Wolfgang Pauli. Wild flowers picked both from within the area of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, Geneva, and from Swiss alpine meadows outside the CERN area, are pressed inside pages of the book and photographed.

This project was made during a residency at La Becque, Switzerland and supported by Arts at CERN curated by Monica Bello

Interview with Libby Heaney

Treister homepage

Background image: A young, star-forming region called NGC 3324 in the Carina Nebula captured by NASA's James Webb telescope 2022