Christine Corday with the metal ingot that forms the basis of Sans Titre. Courtesy Corday Studio 2020. Right: Detail of ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor) in Saint-Paul-Lez-Durance, France. Photo provided by ITER Organization

Artist Christine Corday represents ‘Art’ as 36th global contributor to ITER

The decades long project that “will allow humanity to replicate and control the forces that power our sun and distant stars, proving the viability of fusion as a safe, carbon-free, and virtually inexhaustible source of energy,” has brought 35 nations together in an ambitious scientific project, in human history, to generate a star on Earth. The star is aptly called ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor), which is a 444-acre site located in Saint-Paul-Lez-Durance, ans has been a decades-long project.

“When I learned that China, the European Union, India, Japan, Korea, Russia and the United States had joined together to create the pyramid of our times—a miniature, momentary star on Earth—I knew that Art must have a place within this monumental feat of human ingenuity and collective advancement,” stated visual artist Christine Corday.

One of the key aspects of ITER is a complex and collective global task for each of its members to fabricate specialized components of the machine called a “Tokamak,” which is a doughnut-shaped magnetic confinement device. There have been several countries who have contributed thousands of components of varying size and functionality, with other countries contributing fewer. Art has contributed a single object within the shared blueprint with Corday’s two-pound sculptural object, Sans Titre, representing Art as the 36th contributor to mankind’s largest terrestrial realization of the celestial. The site-specific and functional work, which the artist forged from metals derived from ancient stars, was recently integrated into the ITER fusion device, a physical manifestation of Art that stands alongside the material contributions of the 35 major international country collaborators, an infrastructural object within the fabricated star that will harness fusion energy for human use.

“We are the witnessing generation of a star being built on Earth—a human-made sun. As a sculptor my tools are the cosmological-scale hammer and chisel, temperature and pressure, and my materials come from suns. It was important for me that a single work of art be forged on Earth from the metals of stars and placed in support of science re-creating one,” notes Corday of the work Sans Titre.

To develop the artwork, Corday worked with ITER directors to select an infrastructural object to exist within the steel structure that supports the mega-heavy components of the star. Sans Titre takes the form of a metal alloy M-30 bolt, but to Corday it is stripped of its title and exists solely as a sincere material form within the device. The Art element is unseen yet known, creating a sustained physical presence at the very intersection of Art and Science that symbolizes both the literal and figurative support of Art to this chief global undertaking.

Bernard Bigot, Director-General of ITER, explains, “Much like Science, Art propels our collective culture forward. The material fusion of Art and Science aligns with the very essence of what we are aiming to achieve in developing hydrogen fusion as a sustainable source of energy for humankind.” In a symbolic act of this union, Bigot installed Sans Titre by hand into the ITER structure. He continues, “Christine Corday’s ‘sculpture’ joins ITER for the whole duration of the Project to represent Art as a pillar in this ambitious, collaborative and global feat of scientific and cultural advancement.

Corday’s practice engages both the material and the evolving human scale of perception and fundamental forces. She works with temperature, pressure, material states, elemental metals and even creates further mediums, often in collaboration with international scientists and science organizations including NASA. Corday has been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions including at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and Contemporary Art Museum Saint Louis. Corday is best known for her celebrated public works at the intersection of Art and Science, such as UNE (2008), a monumental metal alloy sculpture which was presented under the High Line in Manhattan and designed to change and rust upon human interaction, and her contribution to the National September 11 Memorial (2011) at Ground Zero, with her specially formulated touch-focused black pigment color that was selected by the architect Michael Arad and hand applied by Corday herself. The European Cultural Commission has invited Corday to participate in the upcoming 2020 Venice Biennale of Architecture, where she will present Material Phases of Suns, a site-specific installation based on her contribution to the ITER star project.

February 2020 marks the completion of the steel structure supporting the star and the installation of Sans Titre. ITER’s First Plasma will mark the first comprehensive test of machine functionality, from the giant magnets to the operability of key systems. Scheduled for December 2025, First Plasma will mark the operational launch of this multi-decade program.

About ITER

ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor) is the most complex scientific project in human history and has the potential to revolutionize and usher in the next generation of sustainable energy.

Thousands of engineers and scientists have contributed to the design of ITER since the idea for an international joint experiment in fusion was first launched in 1985. The ITER Members—China, the European Union, India, Japan, Korea, Russia and the United States—are now engaged in a 35-year collaboration to build and operate the ITER experimental device, and together bring fusion to the point where a demonstration fusion reactor can be designed. Fusion is the same energy source generated from the Sun that gives the Earth its light and warmth, and ITER is a project to prove that this fusion power is a sustainable source of energy that can be produced on a commercial scale.

On a cleared, 42-hectare site in the south of France, building has been underway since 2010. The central Tokamak Building, currently in its sixth year of construction, is nearly completed and machine assembly is scheduled to start in 2020. The first major installation event of this new phase is programmed for March 2020: the installation of the 1,250-tonne cryostat base. In the ITER offices around the world, the exact sequence of assembly events has been carefully orchestrated and coordinated.

In November 2017, the project passed the halfway mark to First Plasma. (More here.) Today, project execution to First Plasma stands at 65.9 percent (October 2019 data).