The pair had done research residencies at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington DC and the Charles Darwin Research Station in the Galápagos Islands. In installations and moving-image works, such as “Black Rain” (2009), they look at our place in the universe through the lens of science and technology.

“We started making music and then began putting digital art to our noise,” Gerhardt says. Semiconductor, who are partners in life and art, met in 1994 at Brighton University, where they studied fine art. The result is an immersive installation called “Halo”, which will be on display at the 49th edition of the Art Basel fair this week.

Ruth Jarman and Joe Gerhardt, who make up the artist duo Semiconductor, are explaining how their latest project - inspired by the Large Hadron Collider at the Cern laboratory in Geneva - will bring complex particle physics to life.

Talking about subatomic particle collision around a kitchen table in Brighton, south-east England, is not exactly an everyday scenario.

Halo Recruit instal