THE ROLE OF IMAGES IN THE STORYTELLING OF THE INVISIBLE

As particle physicists, also science communicators who work on the communication on particle physics are always involved with the traces of something. Images have an increasingly important function in communication through both traditional and new media, and play an even more relevant role in building a good storytelling. Anyway, that’s a well-known evidence, particles and forces of nature are not generous in offering images of themselves, and although they determine our universe and even our existence, they are not really familiar objects. The story of particles is so time by time a new challenge: that’s well-known for those who work in the Communications Offices of Scientific Institutes devoted to research in this field, who have to deal daily with both the constraints of institutional communication and the need to communicate an accessible message in a passionate way in order to reach and involve ever new audiences. Research and experimentation of different ways to communicate have led to the birth of conference-show projects, in which performing arts intertwine with the storytelling of science. But also art exhibitions that, thanks to a proper scenography realized through videos and interactive multimedia installations, seek to create realistic environments. Thus, the interweaving of different communication languages – from the dialogue around science ideas to the use of metaphors, images, cartoons, or artistic multimedia exhibits and performing arts - can accompany the public to the discovery of some of the most fascinating ideas of the contemporary physics like the discovery of gravitational waves, the search for Dark Matter, but also Albert Einstein’s General Relativity or wave-particle duality.