Quantum Theory Art

Abstract / Overview

Quantum Theory Art is a project that questions the modern assumption that an object exists as a fully determinate entity prior to observation, and examines how art comes into being through relations among the work, the viewer, observation, and context. Rather than applying quantum theory to art as a physical explanation, the project treats observation, indeterminacy, and relationality as points of departure for reconsidering the existence of art.

Full Text

Quantum Theory Art is a project begun in 2016. At its center is a question directed toward the modern conception of art according to which an artwork exists as a completed and determinate object independently of its viewer.

Quantum theory is not introduced here as a scientific theory capable of physically explaining artworks. Rather, it serves as a point of departure for asking whether the state of an object must be regarded as completely determined prior to observation, what position observation occupies in relation to an object, and whether observer and observed can be conceived as entirely separable.

Within conventional artistic institutions, artwork, artist, and viewer are often understood as occupying distinct and independent positions. A work is produced, after which a viewer observes and evaluates it. Quantum Theory Art questions this separation itself. Instead of assuming that the meaning and existence of the artwork are fully determined before the event of viewing, the project examines how different realities may arise through relations involving artwork, viewer, place, time, and conditions of observation.

Observation, in this sense, is not simply the act of looking at an object. It is an event through which self and other enter into relation, allowing the reality of the work to come into being. The artwork is therefore reconsidered not as an object containing a single fixed meaning, but as a condition holding multiple relational possibilities.

This line of inquiry later connects with concepts developed throughout bigakusha-haha’s practice, including interface, self-externalization, nonlocality, co-being, and generation. From the later perspective of Generative Topological Ontology, Quantum Theory Art can be positioned as an important preceding practice in which existence was already being reconsidered not as an isolated substance but as something constituted through relations and possibilities of connection.

Quantum Theory Art, however, does not simply transfer concepts from quantum mechanics into art. Its significance lies precisely in preserving the distinction of phase separating scientific accounts of quantum phenomena from artistic and philosophical inquiry, while using questions of observation, determinacy, and objectification to reconsider the assumptions of modern art.

Keywords

Quantum Theory Art; observation; indeterminacy; relationality; artwork; viewer; objectification; existence; interface; generation