Science in the performance stratum: hunting for Higgs and nature as performance

Abstract

Recent traditions such as posthumanism and new materialism propose that non-humans and matter are active participants in processes of signification, so that humans do not give meaning to matter, but matter and meaning co-constitute each other. Notably, Karen Barad's plea for ‘the study of practices of knowing in being’ implies that performativity – with its conforming as well as its norm-shifting effects – is situated at the very heart of both scientific work itself and engagements with it. Understanding how matter and meaning are entangled requires a shift in focus from the relationship between them as it has come about towards the ‘processual relating’ within which this relationship comes about. This means to study the identities and subjectivities of entities in the laboratory as they are ‘in the making’. Following performance studies scholar Jon McKenzie, we argue that this ‘processual relating’ takes place under the pressure to perform, or else. Read in tandem with Barad, McKenzie's approach to performance in terms of a challenge (of being challenged to ‘perform, or else’) raises the question of whether in scientific experiments not only scientists and technology are put under pressure, but also nature itself is required to ‘perform, or else’. Using the hunt for the Higgs particle at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN, Geneva) as our case study, we will show the productivity of this perspective as it was first developed within the humanities not only for understanding human bodies and by extension of what it means to be human, but also for our understanding of knowledge production in the sciences. Furthermore, we suggest that such understanding may provide a useful perspective on the transformations in research and knowledge production currently brought about by the rise of the Digital Humanities.

Keywords:

• performance studies
• particle physics
• Higgs particle
• philosophy of science
• performance
• posthumanism

Acknowledgements

The ideas elaborated in this article were developed in dialogue with Jan van den Berg, theatre-maker (a.o. Higgs – Stand Up Physics) and co-author (with Hannie van den Bergh) of the award winning documentary Higgs: Into the Heart of Imagination.

Notes on contributors

Maaike Bleeker is Professor of Theatre Studies in the Department of Media and Culture Studies at Utrecht University, the Netherlands.

Iris van der Tuin is Associate Professor of Gender Studies and Philosophy of Science in the Department of Media and Culture Studies at Utrecht University, the Netherlands.

Notes

1. There is much debate about Butler's assumed ‘linguisticism’ and her self-asserted inability to allow for the agency of matter, or to even discuss materiality. This polemicised debate falls beyond the scope of this article, and we wish to refer to Sari Irni's (2013) recent overview for clarification.

2. Independently in the sense that people using the notion of performance within one field were usually largely unaware of how the same notion was used in the other fields.

3. With the French philosopher of technology Gilbert Simondon we can call this the ‘ontological force of technicity’ (see Hoel and van der Tuin 2013).

4. Heidegger's ‘The Question Concerning Technology’ in Heidegger (1993, 308–341). See also McKenzie (2001, 155–172) on the translation of this term.

5. Heidegger gives the example of how in mining the earth is made to bring forth uranium or how in a hydroelectric power plant a dam is instrumental in yielding electricity (1993, 320–321).

6. See CERN official website. Accessed March 2, 2014. http://home.web.cern.ch/about

7. Accessed March 8, 2014. http://www.kva.se/en/pressroom/Press-releases-2013/The-Nobel-Prize-in-Physics-2013/