Quantum Research Films

The Quantum Research Films collaboration by Erika A. Kiss and Chris Tully stretches the limits of the new literacy of architectonic rhetoric. Their research films pursue persuasive and aesthetically informed dramatic data visualization used for representing quantum phenomena. Pure quantum states have no external interactions and no sense for the direction of time therefore cannot be conceptualized from the classical humanistic, single fixed-point perspective. While the single fixed point of view emerges from observing the tangible functionalism of classical physical systems, quantum thinking requires the imagination to give up the single fixed perspective of the classical observer and assume a dynamic, 360-degree, non-anthropomorphic, rather, environmental perspective in a radical break with the tangible-object fetishism that is habitual to the mind. Since classic verbal, geometrical, and cinematic representations are suited for classical Newtonian physics, we need new representational strategies to communicate quantum thinking in a perspicuous and persuasive manner. Quantum research films enable audiences to use their imagination counterintuitively, so that the mind can be adjusted to quantum systems of non-tangible relationality and non-directional spatial-temporal conceptions. Two such research film installations directed by Kiss can be viewed in Venice as part of the Architectural Biennale 2023 until November 26.