This is the music created as part of
a collaboration between musicians
and quantum physicists at the Yale Quantum Institute.
We'll be hearing about this and a new
collaboration
with the artist Serena Scappanini
in this episode of the physics world stories
podcast.
Welcome along to this episode of the podcast
where we will be hearing as I say
more about that music you've just been listening
to and we'll hear from Serena Scapagnini
the artist whose work exploring memory
and quantum physics
is part of this year's collaboration
between
art and science at the Yale
Quantum Institute.
That's all to come. But first, here's the
man behind it all,
Florian Carr.
The managing director of the Yale Quantum Institute.
And when I'm not, running the institutes,
I work with artists, that we bring in
residence for year long residency.
We teach them a lot about quantum physics.
They interact with the researcher, and we create,
artwork,
that are quantum themes and use some of
the quantum data, quantum principle, quantum metaphors,
and we,
make installation that we use for science outreach
for the general public and for younger students
to encourage them to do a career in
STEM. The Quantum Institute,
is a research center that was created at
Yale, in 2014.
It regroups 30,
research groups. We have around 350
researcher,
including students, postdoc grad students,
and, of course, faculty and staff researcher.
And, we work on everything that is science
information, quantum science information.
And the the idea is to try to
encourage people from different departments to work together
to build quantum technology.
So we have people in the institutes
that are, from applied physics, from physics, from
chemistry, computer science, electrical engineer. All of these
people were coming together both on the theory
side and the experimental side
to, to collaborate and building new machines.
Of course, we have a big chunk of
the institutes dedicated in building superconductive
cubits machines,
but, we are mostly a fundamental research group.
We do a lot about quantum sensors.
We do a lot about quantum error correction,
and some some quantum materials.
We have a very large, scope of interest.
And so the Quantum Institute is trying to
be the home of everything quantum at Yale
too. So so we are the the front
door. So if somebody has a question about
quantum or if a company wants to to
work with us or, like, they have a
case use problem that they want researcher to
to fix.
They come in. We try to pair them
with researcher,
and hopefully, down the line, one or two
years down the line, we have a solution
for them.
Okay. And are you a quantum physicist then?
Is that how you ended up there? I
am not. I am actually,
a rocket scientist.
So I was, studying,
heat transfer in France, and I was working
with NICNEC, which is the national center for
space, in France, and the ESA, the European
Space Agency.
And I was studying the evaporation of alcohol
droplets in this plane,
flying in parabolas instead of, flying straight in
border.
And, we were studying the, the effect of
the Magdalene
in the droplets. And so the idea was
to try to understand
how to increase,
cooling when we don't have gravity.
And then I slowly shifted,
into material science, moved to Yale to do,
a post doc in material science working with,
liquid metals and injecting,
a bit of magnetic and,
iron powders in this liquid
to try to, come up with a small
model for the core of Earth to have,
like, a smaller scale side of things.
And then after a few years, the Quantum
Institute was looking for,
for a manager.
And I realized that my skill set was
more suited to help researcher
more than doing the research myself,
because I'm I'm fascinated with learning about all
of these new things.
But I'm I'm much more proficient in,
science communication,
in trying to, like, build a community of
scientists to have large scale projects. So that's
why I shifted to more, like, management of
science side of things.
Okay. And how many times a week does
somebody say to you that's not rocket science,
but since you've learned more from rocket science?
Quite a lot. Quite a lot.
This is my favorite icebreaker.
I do a lot of, I'll I do
a lot of intro to quantum talks, for
people outside of the field, like some sort
of one hour quantum one zero one. And
one of my jokes that I can only
do it if the new people if there's
new people in the audience, but, yeah, that's
like, we're gonna do quantum physics. I showed
them a lot of equation. I was like,
ah, don't worry. That's not rocket science.
So best built in icebreaker
on that. Yeah. Yeah. But it's it's funny
because every time people, people say that, I'm
like, oh,
nice to say that.
So you've got this, the the science background.
So what what and you talked a bit
about science communication. What drew you towards? I
mean, is it your idea to have a
a an artist in residence in this artist
program at Yale?
Yeah. So
I think I I need to give credits
to France and growing up in France to,
like, give me this idea. There's there's a
lot of events,
in France that are mixing art and science.
I feel that a lot of, like, street
arts, a lot of museum of science, a
lot of proper museum that have this kind
of, like there's not really a disconnect between
art and science in France. And growing up
there really gave me the sense of, like,
these two things belong together. And when I
moved to The US, there was a really
big shift of, like, the the humanities were
doing their thing. The science were doing their
thing.
And,
and despite the fact that Yale is a
liberal arts school, they're trying to, like, encourage
interdisciplinary.
In practice, it was not done quite a
lot. And so I started in 2,017.
We started small. We started with a small
series of talk mixing two topics,
one in the humanities and one in in
science.
And, the first talk was about how quantum
physics democratize music. And so it it was,
somebody,
sir MacBury, I think,
was, was giving a talk on on on,
all of the application that quantum mechanics and
and the fundamental research in quantum mechanics,
were used for music. So, like, all of
the laser, compact disc, and all of this
technology
was developed thanks to fundamental research in quantum
mechanics.
And during that talk, a lot of the
audience,
was completely unknown to me. Usually, we have
all scientists come to our talks, and this
time we had people from outside the field
coming in. And I was like, oh, there's
something here. And we slowly build up having,
this series of talk. Now we've done 22
talks in this series over the years.
And so we we started building things, like
we did physics and dance. We did mathematic
and crochet. We did architecture and sounds.
Lot of these things, history in quantum physics.
And and then slowly building on this, we're
like, oh, it would be so nice if
we could have an artist in residence and
go further.
And the idea was to try to bring
someone in to try to
visualize
a complex
concept in quantum mechanics,
because as human, we are fundamentally
anchored
in the classical world. We have, like, we
have big bodies that are,
submitted to to gravity.
And and when you go to smaller skills,
you have things like the observer effects, like
the the superposition of states, and it gets
really, really difficult for us to understand, to
wrap our hands around it.
And,
by having really interesting visuals,
it might be easier to, like, start the
conversation.
The the idea is not to not to,
like,
make the artwork
into a museum science
diorama.
The idea is to do some fine arts
that spark interest.
And then when people come in, they have,
like, oh, this is this cool visual. We
can come in. We have we we did
in the past
installations. We did music,
videos. We did live concerts.
We did,
light shows. On facade, we did museums,
applications,
and recently with, Serena Scampagnini,
we did some,
on on-site installation with paper. And so we
wanted people to come in, have a spark
of interest, and then look at the little
pamphlets and figure out why it's quantum. And
we hope that people,
get interested enough that they can go on
their own and, like, maybe watch a YouTube
video explaining the the key concept or maybe
taking the next, like, quantum one zero one
class if, at the school or maybe, like,
picking up a book of,
like, science outreach about quantum mechanics. And then
that
that's basically, I I wanted with this program
to to fight
science phobia and the fact that, people are
scared of talking about it.
There's this thing when I go to to
parties and I say, oh, I work with
quantum physicist. People open their eyes wide and
say, oh, you must be so smart or
like, oh, it's so difficult. It's not for
me. And then the conversion shutdowns.
But then if somebody say, like, oh, I'm
a neurosurgeon. People are like, oh, that's so
cool. You go into brains and do this.
I'm like, I'm pretty sure they don't. But,
people,
people, like,
engage with whatever all the very difficult jobs
are. But, like, somehow with quantum physics, it's
okay to say, no. I don't wanna talk
about it. And so,
I wanted to give these people, like,
an access ramp and say, okay. I know
you don't know much about quantum physics, but,
like, come see this artwork. And then
if you like the artwork
and that's all that you want to do,
that's fine. You just go you just watch
some cool art. But if you if you're
interested enough, it might help you next time
somebody else talk about quantum physics. You'll be
like, oh, I remember we talked about supervision
of state with this installation that had, like,
a webcam tracking me, and I could be
in two place at once. And and that's
basically what I'm trying to do, trying to
give give them a lot of visuals,
so,
they can grasp onto the metaphor or the
concept and things.
Okay. Can you tell me about that webcam
tracking people and being a Yeah.
So this was an installation by our first,
very first artist in residence, Martha Lewis.
She was very fascinating by the superconductive qubits
machines because they were in this, like, really
cool fridges,
dilution refrigerator
that runs at, almost absolute zero.
And she wanted people to be able to
enter these fridges. So we built this in
our institute, this gigantic installation
with curtains around
and people could come in. And on the
ceiling of the institute, we had a webcam
tracking the position of the people.
And the, one of the grad students, Stephane
Krabs Zaneuf
was working on an algorithm
to detect the parity in a system. So
basically, they were entangling
qubits and trying to figure out if the
spin were both up or opposite. So, like,
either equal or opposite.
And, and so when the the people were
inside the installation, the webcam was tracking their
position
and the, basically, the observer effect came into
play. You were basically locking
where you were in the diagram
locked in and then the algorithm was trying
to finish the the the the patterns on
on the ceiling. But the cool thing about
this installation is that
the only way to solve this pattern was
for nobody to be inside the installation because
you could have superposition of states. And so
it's picture a Sudoku
where at the end of the Sudoku, you
have one square left
and then it it needs to be a
three and a five at the same time.
And so it doesn't work because you're here
trying to say, like, no. It can only
be three or five.
But, when you're outside of the experience or
outside of the installation,
the superintendent of states was happy to have
a three and a five, for example. And
so you could solve this this diagram. And
so that was the idea of, like,
you are a bit of the problem in
a quantum system. So you need to, like,
space on space out on this thing.
So when you're doing something like that, I
mean, you said that the people you know,
you don't mind if people might just come
and enjoy the the artwork of this. Are
you
what is the feedback from people?
So I was very interested in having
artists that have a mature
body of work because the the the the
task we we are asking them is quite
difficult. Come to this place you don't know,
on a topic you don't know, and make
some art about it. And so it was
very important for me for the artist to
work on their practice and have fine arts
and have something they prod off. And then
on the side, my job is to bring
the visitor in and develop materials, develop brochure,
pamphlet explaining the key concept in a way
that's easy.
And so that way, when people come in,
they can
branch out and figure out, like, oh, I
want I'm interested more in the art. I
can talk to the artist. I'm interested in
the science. I can talk to you to
Florian.
And the feedback has been really good because,
we
we started in 02/2017.
And,
to a a few weeks ago, Syrna's company,
the installation was featured at the Arts and
Idea Festival,
and so 2025.
And we still had people who came in
and say, oh, we came to this event
in 2017.
We didn't understand about it. And every year,
we came back to more and more. And
now we don't understand
completely everything, but we have a better understanding.
And so the feedback has been really, really
positive because I think people are curious. We
just haven't find a way
to give them easy enough access to our
discipline.
And then one of the feedback that made
me so proud because there was always a
bit of questioning about, like, why are we
spending so much money on making art or
on, like, this outreach program?
And, two years ago, we had two prospective
students, two girls that came in through the
to the labs and through the institutes
And they they came to me and they
said, like, oh, you're foreign. Oh, we picked
to come to Yale because we saw your
artwork project things, and it was so cool.
And I don't want to be a full
time engineer. I'm also interested in art. And,
like, that was the reason why they picked
Yale because they have they could do both.
They could be a great scientist, but also
a great artist in the way. And so
I think it has resonated
pretty well. And the the feedback has been
really overwhelmingly
positive.
So, and that's why I think that's why
we've been continuing with, like, bigger and bigger
project over the years. That's brilliant. That's really,
really brilliant. I'm gonna tell you a quick
story just while we're here because Please do.
So I have in my,
in my distant past before becoming a lecturer
and just doing marking, I have made,
science art shows myself in the in the
distant past. And I once made one, which
happened at Manchester Science Festival.
It I I don't really want to go
into the detail on it, but about four
year no. Six years later, I was standing
at the opening ceremony thing of, the Monster
Sized Festival again, and I was standing as
the director of the festival.
And,
somebody came up to the director, and she
said, I just wanted to say to you
that we came to a show at your
festival,
six years ago, and my daughter was then
in, you know, whenever she was
12,
and it completely changed her perception of science
and made her want to become a scientist
as she's now going to study physics at
Manchester University. And I was studying there going,
I wonder if it was mine. And then
she said, which show was it? And she
said, obviously, it was mine. And it's just
a wonderful, wonderful thing. Congrats. That's amazing.
No. But that's exactly why that's the reason
why I think. I I think I had
this experience growing up. I went to this
kind of shows and then I was like,
oh, this is why I'm so interested in
science. It's because, like, it it didn't seem
scary. It didn't seem like it was a
class. It's if you brought up with,
like, oh, this is the cool thing that
happens and come experience this fun thing and
come, like, get zapped by the, like,
electricity display or come get the, like, see
the lighting shifts with the the diagrams and
you can see rainbows with light when you
split the lights. Like, all of this cool
thing makes it
you you stop in an hour instead of
of being like, oh, this is an equation.
I'm scary. And and and I think
the the reason why I,
I feel that my English is good enough
is because I had a a theater teacher.
The my English teacher was doing theater. We
were playing doing Shakespeare. And she was mimicking
and miming all of the words we didn't
know in English, learning English as a second
language.
And I was fascinating with her because it
was so like, the the teaching was so
good that it didn't feel like learning. And
as the opposite, my Spanish teacher was really
doing, like, academic
settings,
and I cannot speak a word of Spanish.
And so, like but for almost the same
amount of of teaching. And so I think
it's very important
to,
like, spark interest because you cannot force someone
to teach, like, to learn all of these
things. But you can give the spark and
then if you and then let them go,
and then they will grab like, if if
you give them hungry for the for the
knowledge, they will go on their own and
then become like a brilliant scientist.
Yeah. Absolutely.
I I I I wonder if you have
an insight on this. Don't worry if you
don't. But there's there is this cultural thing
of of, you know, saying, oh, physics quantum
physics is really hard.
But, you know, art, that's that's not difficult.
But, actually, art is quite difficult to understand
for some people, but it's sort of culturally
not okay to say that. But it is
culturally okay to say, oh, physics is too
hard for me. What do you have an
idea of why that is?
I think it might come from nerd culture.
It was okay to, like, hate on the
nerds in, like, high school to be like,
oh, it's just the nerds doing their books
things. And then it's not cool. And then
I think
arts and being, like, cool and playing music
or being in the band or, like like,
I'm I'm picturing the Skittle boys, but, like,
that's not really but, like, the cool kids
were not doing science. The couldkills were doing
sports or cool things or art.
And and then I think it was okay
okay to hate on the nerds that were
doing the the book thing. And it might
come in from, like,
the high school
clicks that happens because to be a scientist,
unfortunately, you have to be really good at
your homework. You have to, like, put some
work early
on. I had a very boring childhood in
in high school middle school, high school, and,
like, first year of college, lot of lot
of homework, lot of working. And then the
cool the coolness comes later on. And so
people maybe see the, oh, the nerds are,
like,
reading books and then you don't you don't
do the cool thing until later on. There's
a delayed gratification
on, like, when it becomes extremely
interesting. But you need to build
all of that. I don't want to say
boring knowledge, but, like, the the the stepping
stone to do the cool thing at the
end. And maybe that's why
I I mean, I don't know if it's
the reason why people are okay to say
quantum physics is,
is, like, it's okay to to to dismiss
it.
But maybe that's maybe that's one of the
reason the culture said, like, yeah. That's that's
fine. Maybe maybe maybe it's because, quantum physicists
don't have muscles, and so they can it's
okay to beat them out.
When you're selecting the the artist, you're a
different artist each year.
More or less. Yeah. We've we've been trying
to to do,
we've been trying to keep the residency a
year long because it works pretty well. We
match the academic year from September to June,
and then it's very important
for for me to leave the artist
enough time to build, like, confidence,
relationship,
and learn about all of these things.
So usually,
when I select an artist,
we start by doing a talk.
So we just invite them for a talk
to talk about their practice.
And then I look at the people in
the audience, our scientists, and see if it
clicks or not. And it's not a judgment
of the artwork. But even if we have
an amazing artist and if nobody's interested in
working with them, it's like the collaborating aspect
of the residency is not gonna work. So
it's a very difficult process of, like, finding
somebody who's talented,
who's willing to learn about it. And then
one criteria that's very important is that the
audits the artist needs to be able to
talk about their work. And I know a
lot of a lot of artists are more
on the I would like to let the
art work for itself
and, which absolutely fair, but, like, I'm on
the science outreach camp. We need to, like,
be able to talk about it. And so
that's also one key criteria for the artist,
to talk about the artwork, what it's linked.
And so,
usually, the residency goes as
we left the first semester in the fall
is
fun exploratory
things. So I have a bunch of idea
based on the previous talk they gave about,
like, what their preferred medium is, what work
they're doing will
the kind of work they're doing, what will
match different topic or different, like,
materials. Like, if if somebody is doing installation
with metal, I will direct them closer to,
like, the super community folks where they use
a lot of copper, gold, like, wires everywhere.
But if people are more interested in, like,
software, we we I move them towards more
of the quantum error correction algorithm
teams and so trying to match them. But
I'm also trying to be very careful
on not necessarily, like, blocking them too much.
We do a lot of, like, random meetings
with different people because sometimes you get a
spark.
One, for example, Spencer Topol,
who's a sound artist,
came in and give a talk about his
practice.
And then two grad students came over, and
I was like, you were talking about all
of this sound thing. We're using frequency period.
We're using the same language for machine for
machine for for quantum signals.
And then they just started for, like, five
minutes and then realized they were all three
in a band, and then we made a
quantum electronic noise music album
together. And so that's something that I could
have never come up, like, come up with.
And so I think leaving a little bit
of flexibility in the residency helps a lot.
So I'm trying to guide the artist towards
what I think would be the most successful
collaboration,
but leaving a lot of room in the
first six months. And then after that,
we work on a key concept and try
to build something. So I I keep we
we call it the artwork
in a very wide sense because we never
know what is gonna come.
And so in the past, we've done a
light show, museum installation, drawings,
albums,
an app.
We've done theater while we produced the play,
last, last May. And so there's plenty of
things to do. And then we try to,
work with the International Festival of Arts and
Ideas. It's a it's a big festival
that, celebrated its thirtieth anniversary,
last June.
And so it's perfectly timed. It's in June
at the end of of the residency, and
so we try to do something like that.
Think about
think about this festival a little bit like
the Fringe in in Ambarra,
like, sort of this idea. And so a
lot of artists come in town for two
weeks. It's great fun.
And, we we've been working with them, like,
I think this is our eighth time in
a row working with them, and they've been
an incredible partners. And that's also an excuse
of forcing us to go outside of the
lab, outside of the university settings, and be
on the on the on the New Heaven
Green, which is this big plaza where we're
like, here we go. We have some quantum
things happening on the green.
With Serena, we had some installation on the
green at one of the, Yale libraries and
at our institutes to, like, force people to
walk around and interact with us.
And then we also had, Stuart Smith that
did, like, a big quantum error correction light
installation on the green. And so we we're
really trying to to bring the people from
the New Haven community,
with us on this journey.
Of course, I wanted to know more about
that album.
Spencer Topol was very interested in, like, hearing
what the Dada sounded like. So, basically, we
did this live show, and the album is
recording
of the, of the the sets, with, like,
minimum editing.
And so they basically sent a a query
to the labs,
studied the quantum computers,
run a series of of tests. And then
from the data, it was slowing down to
be audible because the frequency are in microwave,
like megahertz. And so we couldn't really hear
them, and so it would slow down to
be audible. And then we started with the
composition or, like, hearing the actual data noise
for the first, like, ten ten minute ish.
And then as we start slowly in, there's
more of a composition layering. Like, the the
grad students,
and then and the and Spencer Topo were
working with, like, three laptops from different datasets
and building in layers. And so it becomes
more and more, like, tonal and more and
more like like a composition,
as as the the track comes in.
This this program is also a good excuse
for me to,
like, play on my, like, what if side
of things because I have a theater background.
I did theater for twelve years before, like,
turning into science. And I think maybe this
is where the sensibility for art came from.
And,
I don't think I'm talented enough as an
artist to make a living out of it,
but I think I'm talented enough as a
producer to help the same way that I'm
helping research scientists,
like, thrive in the environment at the institutes.
I think I'm I'm really good at helping
the artists, like,
thrive and create beautiful
piece of work,
from that experience in the residency. I wonder
whether
it goes the other way because clearly the
the the artists are inspired by the science
to create something. But are the scientists
inspired by the art as well? Yes. I
think this is why this program has been
lasting for so long with that interruption
is because
scientists got something out of it.
There was, it was a bit of a
question at the start in 2017.
People were like, why do we need an
artist? Like, nature is beautiful on its own.
Look at my plot. It's beautiful. Like, it's
so weird that this data coming from nowhere
does this, like, beautiful curve or, like, these
these beautiful patterns.
And I was like, yes. But we could
sublimate and, like,
your plot is beautiful,
but having an artist in helps you, like,
elevates
this this data into, like, a really, like,
breathtaking
visuals,
and then it inspire you. Like,
one element that was, like, really the the
ground zero of this this kind of project
was, like,
if we do some artwork, we could have
some cool visual on the wall. So when
you come work in the institutes, you have
this, like, beautiful mural, you have this beautiful
portrait of quantum computers, you have this beautiful
installation.
It just makes the space welcoming and fun
to live in. And then it started building
in when we had the installation. Some of
the researcher came in and said like,
oh, I've never thought about this diagram this
way before. Like, I think
a lot of the work we've been doing
is blowing up
something that's so small at the human scale
so you can experience it. So the researcher,
the students come in, enter these spaces,
and get to experience quantum error correction algorithm
as their body comes in and, like, trip
sensors, proximity
sensor.
They can come in and see the webcam
tracking them and, like, making the diagram in
real time. And I think it really
offer them
a way of, like, entering the machine and
have a better understanding of this thing.
The interesting about the the album, for Spencer
Turpel Quantum Sound is that we took data
science data from our labs, turn into a
piece of art with the album Quantum Sounds.
And then, the,
the editor,
Eduardo Miranda came in and said, like, oh,
fascinating word. Would you be interested in writing
a science article about how you turn this
into, like, what were your sonification process
and stuff like that? And so, basically, the
we went from science to art to back
to science, because we had, like, a peer
review chapter, and so we went full circle.
And now people are using this kind of
technique to do that with their own data.
So I think it does help, and and
I think the reason
why this program is running for so long
without interruption is because
everybody gained something out of it. The public
is gaining interest in the science. The the
young,
students, first year students are gaining interest and
maybe are joining courses in quantum science. The
the artist gain, like, breadth of of knowledge
and, like, depth into the artwork. The scientists
are gaining a lot of, like,
better understanding of what they're doing. Like, they're
looking at their data another way. And so
I think it's it's a win across the
board for everyone. Are you looking around the
world going, I want that person next. I
want that artist to come here. I am
incredibly lucky.
The first time around, it was incredibly difficult
to find an artist willing to take that
that challenge. I remember going around New Haven,
which has a very thriving artistic scene.
They had, these, in October, they do, an
art open studio where every artist in New
Haven opened the doors and so people can
come in. And I went around with this
call for artists. I was like, hey. We
want to do this. Like, we have a
white wall in the institutes at YEQI.
We just would like some arts, like,
inspired arts. And and then that's when we,
that's when I met Martha Lewis, who has
been working on, like, history of science,
and then human human knowledge and and and
all of these things. And so
we we worked together, and she had a
lot of trust in me. I had a
lot of trust in her. It was basically
like, okay.
We jumped together off the cliff. Let's see
what happens.
And then since we, I get an overwhelming
like, my inbox is full of of people
reaching out and say, hey. I want to
be part of this. And so
the the challenge has changed from,
how can I find someone to, like, hack
how can I have enough hours in the
day to bring all of these people in?
Because people reaching out are doing, like, incredible
work. But the limiting factor is, like, time,
money, and, like, it's,
unfortunately,
the arts and science part is just a
small section of my job. I talk a
lot more about it, but, it it must
be, like, maybe 10% of my job.
And so it's all of the actual
managing director job takes a big, big chunk
of it. But if I could, I would
be delighted
to have that full time. That would be
great. And so if you have yeah. Yeah.
If somebody's listening to the podcast and say,
like, we would like to hire you to
do that full time, please
let me know.
That sort of probably answers the question which
was buzzing in my head at that moment,
which is, you know, what gives you the
most pleasure in your role? Is it is
it this stuff? Is it when you've,
you know,
without being too selfish about it, you've had
a hand in some beautiful artwork being created
that wouldn't exist if it wasn't for what
you're doing in that in that role? Or
is it if some breakthrough happens in the
science side of
things? I would say both. The the main
difference is that in the breakthroughs,
I don't have any hands on it. I
I, like, I only have this, like, helping
on, like, making your life easier as a
scientist, cleaning all of the red tape for
you, making sure that all your grants and
all your financings are done, and then you
can just do science in peace,
which these days
quite the quite the challenge,
on our on our neck of the woods.
But with the with the odds, I, like,
I think I'm finding again this, like,
do it, like, almost this bench science aspect
of it. I'm doing it, like, for the
installation with Serena.
She has these beautiful pieces of paper with
metal in it engraved with the patterns that
the scientists are doing.
And so we had to, like, thread all
of this with, like, an incredible amount of,
like, very thin fishing lines and metal wires
fuse, like, extremely delicate paper hanging from the
ceiling, it's it's maddening. And she might tell
you that it's a lot of work doing
this thing. But then the the outcome is
really brilliant. And then, like, I'm proud of
this because I actually put some, like, sweat
and tears in in these things.
The thing that's interesting is that
often,
the excitement about the the scientific breakthrough at
the, at the institutes
is something that
is linked to the artwork.
I remember that in 2022
oh, 2022,
yeah, there was a breakthrough in quorum error
correction. We could do it in real time.
So it was like a big deal for
scientists.
And the artist in residence, at the time,
Stuart Smith, was like, this is what I
want to do. This is the cool thing.
This is the hot new trend. And so
we use the,
real time quaternary correction algorithm in our installation.
And so, like, it's it was linked to
this. And with Serena's company in his course,
the there was this thing on, on Kirk
Katz that was, like, the theory was almost
there. A grad student was publishing results. So
we had a breakthrough in this, like, quantum
memory,
and that's the thing that we worked on.
And so I think
the we can feel in the artwork the
excitement of the breakthrough. So we we try
to match,
not because we're chasing clouds, but because there's
really a buzzing around the breakthrough. People are
really exciting. People are giving talks,
about it in group meetings, in, like, seminars.
And so I think everybody's really excited about
the breakthrough, about, like, how did we how
was that work? And by being in our
institutes,
the artists, like, suck in the energy, and
I think that's what translates into it. So
you cannot by looking at the art, you
cannot tell directly, like, oh, this is this
breakthrough. This is this breakthrough. We're like, a
lot of the key concept from these things,
like, lie underneath the artworks.
Florian mentioned the artist whose work is involved
in this year's collaboration
several times during our conversation,
so it seemed only right for me to
catch up with Serena Scappanini.
So my,
recent focus about memory
that was already,
strongly related to my work,
after more than twelve years of work with
professor
Michael Higley,
professor of neuroscience at Yale,
brought my attention especially to the
quantum memory.
And,
this is one of the focus that we
we use
to, you know, go further,
trying to develop together
a new
language.
The first vision that I
that I had, been,
lucky enough to develop with the researchers,
was to deepen
the way,
quantum
information is encoded
in state of light
or in the state of some atoms.
So
what I wanted to to see and to
try to see working with the researchers,
was,
the
natural
dissolution of this quantum memory
within
the
states of light. And, peculiarly,
they developed for me a software
that allows me to see the pure state
of light
at the moment of the,
encoding
information
at a quantum level.
So starting from this,
it was very fascinating
for many reason.
First of all, visually,
because the patterns of the superpositions
of the state of the light
are already very meaningful,
and their,
incredible,
and strong symmetry,
was
at the first level,
inspiring to make some drawings and to
and to stay on these,
shapes
to try to suggest,
and in this case, the work was very
much provoked by the
by the collaboration.
The
encoding of the quantum information
and its natural dissolution.
There is also, as you know, a very
strong and meaningful aspect that,
at Yale,
and not only at Yale,
they are focusing about, like, the duration
of the memory and
and
and to try to get the memory longer,
of course, for the building of the quantum
computer, but also for the pure research.
So the
the effect of the
natural dissolution
and visually
the
the correspondence
to the Kerr effect, so the,
natural vortex that you can see within the
states of the light that are,
getting into this Kerr effect.
And the effect of the environment
was
one of the point that we focus about.
Then from that,
we build also some
three d models in the space,
and it was,
really fantastic
to work with
researchers
close to me
to develop these models
playing
in the double way with the superposition
of the particles, so
with the impossible
vision of,
the different position in the space that
at the same time,
you know, are
are inhabit by the particles,
and on the other side, by their natural,
dissolution
and the way the state of light
is losing the quantum information.
But in quantum mechanics,
the way that happens is also that the
environment
has learned the information.
So
if
the memory has been lost,
the idea that,
it is still somewhere in the universe
was very
inspiring.
And this is also translating my language that
is always
very much,
focus
on the different densities and the different dimensions
of the materials,
moving and escaping from one dimension to another,
both physically and conceptually.
So this relationship with the environment
has been very much,
a strong focus
and a good provocative way to go
ahead within the paper, within the materials, within
the copper and aluminum that we use to,
represent
this moment of pure perfect
memory encoding
and its natural dissolution, its natural
exchange
with the external
eyes.
Is there a reaction that you want from
people? Do you want them to be able
to
to understand more, to feel it more, to
I I generally don't,
trust too much the understanding in a very
debulgative way.
Of course, there is explanation,
but
I'm I prefer if the feelings comes
from the vision itself and the feeling, the
physical,
experience of the artwork.
So, for example,
regarding the states of light,
we choose some of them, and I,
made the drawings of the path, and we
engrave these drawings within,
some
metal plates.
I generally work a lot with copper, but
for this time, I chose also other superconductors
like aluminum.
And then for,
some of the works,
the the plate is hidden within the paper.
So I
I like to play with this, like,
hidden word,
as well as quantum word is like,
there are effects of
the quantum world surrounding us,
but they
their code, their,
level
of understanding
of behaving is
mostly
invisible.
So I also
like to express it at this level. So
there are the plates within the paper.
Nevertheless, you don't see them. I'm definitely sure
that you can perceive
the the metal structure surrounding you because then
the paper is very often,
displayed
in,
within installation that are immersive, so you are
surrounded by the artworks.
You can see
some of the layers, but you don't don't
necessarily
have to see
the wall and the old layers altogether.
And this happens also with the geometric structures
that are surrounding the
the spectator
because the final,
bidimensional
geometric path is visible only from a top
view or a down view.
And so in this sense, I like the
viewer to to to perceive and to go
layer by layer, but not necessarily to understand
everything altogether. And this is, lovely also because
everyone can experience
its favorite,
part of the work or the part that
is more in resonance with his understanding.
And,
for example,
in,
many of my works, I
also,
put,
some ink drawings
that are very subtle, very even then invisible,
relate to memory and to their natural failure.
I I try in this sense to be
gentle, not to push too much my vision
to the viewer, but to respect the relationship
with the viewer in this sense.
Quantum physics teach us that everything has a
physical storage in the universe,
even memory.
I'm
I use for this a lot of, inks
for the drawings to be very fluid, to
be very,
you know, like a river,
untouchable,
but absolutely
present.
And,
coming also from the neuroscientific
and neurobiological
point of view, the way we think and
we store and we remember through images,
is also an aspect that I wanted to
suggest.
And with the
with the quantum world that is, of course,
naked
from images,
it was even more provocative
to to try to play with this idea
of memory
and with
the with the patterns of superposition
to,
suggest even a more visible,
insides of the quantum world. So they people
can actually experience this still. Right? You say
is the there's a a solo show, and
it's some of it is permanently
part of the Yale,
exhibition space.
Exactly.
One of the artwork has been,
acquired. It's now part of the
permanent collection at the Yale Quantum Institute
that is visible by appointment
with,
with the director with the managing director of
the institution, Flora.
And,
at the
Haas
family arts library at Yale, there is a
temporary show. There is a solo show with
an art installation,
along the space of the atrium of the
library.
And, then we had some temporary installation,
in the green for the
festival of arts and ideas.
And, in the library in particular,
we have these 10 panels where
the,
the play with the memory and this river
of images
is build upon,
a sense of,
vision of our reality.
And
beyond, there is this level of geometric patterns
that maybe at the beginning you you don't
understand what they are,
but for some reason,
they are, I think, very familiar to our
eyes.
And,
they are done peculiarly
with the cure effect of some states of
light.
So with this idea to
to have always a multilayered
reality and a multilayer,
work that suggests you to go from
one
frequency, we can say, to the other, to
the next, and to experience this idea of
gradient
of, perception.
You know, when you were growing up and
you were thinking maybe I'm gonna be an
artist, did you think maybe I'm gonna be
an artist who's doing some sort of,
work with quantum
physicists at Yale? Is that where you thought
your art was going to go? Well, I
think that you don't
exactly
have a moment,
to imagine
how
it will be when I'll become an artist.
You just feel, oh my god. It's happening
to me.
And to be honest, I always had this
sort of vision of,
like, the the geometry
surrounding
every shapes of nature was very familiar to
me even in a sense of natural vision.
So,
I think that I always had a very
close feeling with science,
and
this is also what I try to to
combine at the university. Even if in Italy,
you have to choose
if you follow a humanistic or scientific
path, but I always try to combine and
to follow more of this. So I think,
you're right. It was already there, and, yes,
I had the feeling that,
these
two aspect were strongly connected.
And not by chance,
when I studied at the university,
art history
and then peculiarly,
the middle age and then the Renaissance art,
the feeling that science and art were totally
connected
was very strongly,
related to my studies and to my vision.
So I think, yes, for both of the
sentences.
Decide that there is not a moment that
you decide. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, you just
have to, you know, accept. Do you when
you were at Yale, does what what's the
atmosphere like there? Do the scientists sort of
embrace the fact that they have an artist
there? Are they all fully on board with
this idea? Yes. Of course,
not by
the whole group,
but,
also in the vision of, Florian Carr, the
curator of the program.
There is this idea
to create a resonance that is more personal.
So with the few of them that we
have been starting the collaboration,
it was very deep.
And, with, Harsh Babla, we developed really,
the vision.
They developed the software for me and then
the models, and so I can really see
together with him
what kind of,
okay, if they are using a state of
light,
I can see from the software
which is the pure one
and which is the combination of, like, the
from a to b
for combination
if an error is
coming. So it was really
shared and in real time.
And, with with some of the researchers, we
went really deep in the
in the research, in the relationships.
And then I I've been very honored to
be followed by
professor Sterling professor Steven Gervin.
And,
we deemed the discussion was more
in a theoretical
or most philosophical
way to deepen the subject.
That was, very important to build also the
statement beyond.
And,
so, yes, I I found it very,
very open. That in a mysterious way, even
from other people that were may maybe more
suspicious
or, I don't know, shy or
not interested, but,
I'm glad because also working there for one
year,
we had the chance to to become more
familiar and,
and especially the work to talk with its
own language
that is not just, made by,
our human relationship,
but I think it talks
with,
its,
own,
presence.
And now one work has been acquired by
the Institute,
so it's part of their permanent collection.
Another work is,
on a solo show at Yale
at the Haas
University
Arts Library.
So I hope that the work can continue
to
to engage,
in this discussion between,
art and quantum physics.
Do you find that maybe you think like
this anyway, but do you find that that
that knowing this about quantum when you're working
on this this sort of
the artwork that you're working on and speaking
to these these quantum physicists, does it change
the way you see the world around you
outside of when you're working?
Definitely.
Yes.
It provoked the work
and, it provoked my vision.
And
it's nice because now I won another grant.
I'll be working again at Yale but with
another institute.
But in these days, peculiarly, I was still,
focusing and and working about the
quantum
experience and the quantum
world.
As we said,
there are quantum effects in the world around
us. So
once you once you see,
once you perceive or once you even just
have the,
intuition of some of this law,
I think you can't
leave them
or they can't leave you.
Yeah. Amazing. Amazing.
So,
you've you've got another commission. What's next then?
I'll be,
the artist,
in residency
program at the Institute
that is, again, focused on
neuroscience
and neuro computational
aspect of robotics.
A little bit, I've been working also about
AI,
but my will
is
to continue the focus on memory
and
and so to combine
even my recent experience
at the YQI because I think I'm gonna
be in touch with the Yale Quantum Institute,
and
and some of the collaborative project could go
ahead.
But the involvement
now is more,
again, related with neuroscience.
And,
there is also one very intimate aspect of
my work that goes,
to touch the encounter
with the people.
And for this, I'm gonna work with 10,
Alzheimer,
patients.
Alzheimer, this is
Wow. That sounds really interesting.
But I think that there is a a
peculiar
common lexicon
between different,
aspect of this work about memory.
And so this is what I'm
kindly trying to develop,
combining different insights.
That is mostly from neuroscience
and from one to word.
Oh, it's amazing. It's amazing.
What a lovely, lovely thing. How if people
would like to know more about your work
and to follow you, how would they do
that? K. Follow me on Instagram
and follow my upcoming exhibitions that will be
at at Yale again,
next year.
I'll be also
I'll be most probably working in Europe next
year.
So I
I I'll for sure update my website,
cut this, but now it's not working because
of an attacker attack. Oh, no.
It will be everything on
next year, it will be everything on my
website,
and, I'm gonna have a presentation in Venice,
most probably also a show in UK.
And, I'll be working at Yale going back
and forth from Italy to The US.
So I hope that also the world will
allow us to develop these,
interesting projects.
Well, fingers crossed for that. And you can
find links to all of Serena's work and,
of course, the work with Florian and the
Yale Quantum Institute
on the Physics World website, physicsworld.com,
where you can find this episode
of the podcast.
I'd like to thank Serena and Florian for
talking to me, and if you're lucky enough
to be near enough to Yale to experience
some of this art, then I really recommend
you can get along to that. Unfortunately, I
won't be able to myself, but I will
be back next month with something else from
this wonderful world of physics.