The Large Hadron Collider has brought new insights into the creation of our universe, some bizarrely compelling conspiracy theories, and now an interactive experience powered by Oculus Rift and Leap Motion. Collider is an arty audiovisual experience that provides a first-person perspective of a particle hurtling through the $6.4 billion apparatus.

Once you don an Oculus Rift headset outfitted with a Leap Motion detector, you are immediately sent spinning through the collider's synchrotron ring. Aside from the name, there's no attempt to replicate the atom smashing experience scientifically. Instead, human hands are replaced with kinematic rigging bones, like something from a Dire Straits video, while subtle motions made by the user remake the virtual world with kaleidoscope of generative graphics and pulsing music.

Designer Eddie Lee has taken artistic license with Collider, but wants it to be a serious homage to the search for the "God Particle." "When the images of the LHC first surfaced online years ago, I was so moved by its sheer beauty—the immense scale, the perfect symmetry, the deep vanishing lines, the architectural and engineering triumph," he says. "The fact that something, built for science, was so beautiful and majestic—it truly struck a chord in me."

Inspiration for the project came from science, but the aesthetic layer is a fascinating array of choices and influences. Scientific-looking reticules, DayGlo color palettes and low-poly graphics from the Saved by the Bell era, and 1960s psychedelia like the Eye of Providence come together in a dynamic cyberpunk landscape. Seminal art games like Rez and Electroplankton also helped shape the look, while the soundtrack, by Japanese DJ Tomohisa Kuramitsu, widely known as Baiyon, fills out the experience.

The Wild West of UX

Underneath the trippy, exuberant surface of Collider lies a serious user interface design project. Lee followed the "rail shooter" design pattern, where a player is forced along a path and can only change his view point, but the absence of a traditional game controller or keyboard forced Lee to make inventive interaction design choices. "3-D is a wild west of UX design. This is extremely exciting because we, as developers, have the ability to define how the user engages with this brand-new interface paradigm," he says. "On the flip side, having this brand new interface paradigm is extremely frightening because there is nothing to fallback on. For example, there is no 'double-click' equivalent in the space of motion controls." Instead, Lee looked to common human behaviors like "pinch and pull" gestures and claps due to their commonly understood meanings, cross-cultural applicability, and their ability to be detected by the Leap Motion detector.

Collider doesn't promise a scientifically accurate experience, but does demonstrate the potential of immersive virtual reality. Funktronic Labs

Collider can be experienced without a VR headset. Users simply wave their hands over the Leap Motion detector and see the results projected on a screen. "We wanted the player to feel a sense of 'play,' as if he or she was jamming to music and was in total control of how the music and visuals progressed," says Lee, though he's not sure the experience would scale to a club level. "How can you guarantee that someone, who has zero musical talent or inclination, will use the product to produce music that is pleasing to the crowd? " For all its achievements, Collider can't yet turn the spastic gyrations of Mollied-out club goers into something productive.

Collider, created by game studio Funktronic Labs, is the closest communion you can make to the sublime without indulging in psychotropic substances. You can get it free through the Leap Motion app store.