Now that I feel grounded, I have taken an evening stroll to the middle zone of CERN, an area that contains the original experiments from the 1950s and 1960s, but which is kind of abandoned. This is literally on the border of Switzerland and France, signified by a century old stone marker (see pic 2). This area feels like something out of a Tarkovsky movie, a landscape of obscure forms and shapes, old buildings and bunkers strewn around artificial undulations of the land, under which lie still active (and radioactive) experiments quietly humming in the evening air. Each building is numbered, yet in no apparent order, which hints at the makeshift nature of scientific experimentation, and maybe even the ad-hoc qualities of the universe itself when challenged with such experiments that summon forth fundamental essences from within the heart of matter.

Aside from the obvious attractions (the search for the origins of the universe and all that) and the secrets buried below the surface of this place (both materially and conceptially) there is something that pulls me to this place. For reasons I can’t consciously pin down, I feel a calling to this zone, maybe it’s something to do with my childhood, partially growing up in the industrial wastelands out the back of Altona and hanging out with my dad at the Esso oil refinery in Hastings. Even though this area is a kind of dreary forgotten wasteland, it is one of my most favourite places in the world.