Kick-off for “Art and Quantum” project as part of IYQ 2025

Date of event: April 3, 2025

The 2025 Inter­na­tional Year of Quantum Science and Techno­logy (IYQ) comes in many facets, and IQST is actively involved in several of them. In early April, the project “Kunst und Quanten: Quantum2025 in Kunst­museen” had its kick-off in the Stutt­gart area. Aim of the project is commu­nic­at­ing aspects of quantum physics and techno­logy towards broad audiences in art museums. The focus is on direct links between “quantum” and “art”, which can include contem­por­ary artists that utilize quantum comput­ing for their work as well as artworks that address funda­mental quantum physics concepts such as uncer­tainty or correl­a­tions. Further­more, there are numer­ous examples in modern art where quantum-based elements such as lasers, LEDs, or other solid-state light sources are employed.

While the “Kunst und Quanten” project organ­izes activ­it­ies through­out Germany and as such is part of the IYQ activ­it­ies of the German Physical Society (DPG), IQST suppor­ted two kick-off events at the Univer­sity of Stutt­gart: around twenty quantum scient­ists, contem­por­ary artists, and museum experts met in the ZAQuant build­ing for a symposium on the inter­con­nec­tions between quantum science and fine arts. This included a lab tour through state-of-the-art quantum research labs.

In the evening, a public lecture was presen­ted by Franz Gießibl (Univer­sity of Regens­burg), who described how his scientific break­throughs with atomic force micro­scopy (AFM) reach­ing sub-atomic resol­u­tion lead to a decades-long exchange with Gerhard Richter, one of the most esteemed paint­ers of our time. This lecture was comple­men­ted by a poster present­a­tion dedic­ated to various aspects related to quantum research, visual arts, and their inter­ac­tion. Here IQST was well repres­en­ted, includ­ing the IQST-inspired artwork “Yes and no.” by Andreas Tesch.