Ars Electronica Sponsored Event, Ars Electronica Center Linz
Joined by Christoph Kremer, Bianka Hofmann, Bob Kastner, Mark Chavez

NEW PATHWAYS IN COMMUNICATING QUNATUM TECHNOLOGY, by Bianka Hoffman

8 SEPTEMBER 2019, Linz

“Artists and designers create their own languages and metaphors to explore, to discover, and face even the contradictions in human communication and existence. Does thinking occur in images, abstract symbols according to mathematical logic or words? Is imagery fundamental in thinking or have mental images no causal role in thought processes?” 

Bianka Hofmann, Linz  2019

We need spaces to negotiate scientific developments to spark the conversation about how we use new technologies and create a society and a future according to our values. The Ars Electronica is such a space. Also, in Germany, a lot has been invested in the last 20 years in explaining science. Science communication has extended its mission: to make R&D understandable to the public, to interact with society’s stakeholders, to inspire young people to study a STEM discipline and to make the purpose of public funds transparent.

However, to negotiate science to achieve real understanding and advance and benefit society requires rethinking the formats scientists, researchers, and developers use to interact with the public and the media. This year’s festival theme Out of the Box – The Midlife Crisis of the Digital Revolution fits very well to the crisis in science and tech communication and the increasing coverage of major tech scandals, which fueled the distrust in R&D. Topics, such as transparency, participation, and co-creation, are vital issues.

In many disruptive fields, the private sector has created reality, and the social and political discourse is barely catching up. The impacts of social media, or the developments in AI, for instance, driven by the private sector, have led to new societal challenges that are negotiated when already established. Classical academic institutions have lost their former unique status in the generation, dissemination, and preservation of scientific knowledge. Emerging theoretical knowledge and the development of new technological applications are now distributed across corporations and start-ups. The call for taking companies to task for the social implications of their technologies and services is getting louder. However, Academia is also astonishingly reluctant, to cooperate beyond different disciplines and to negotiate the impacts of new developments with the public and society.

Even though the ethical and practical relevance of “guidelines” for science communication, developed in 2016 by a supra-institutional working group in Germany, were undisputed, the German Rectors’ Conference (HRK), and the German Research Foundation did not recommend them to the universities as an orientation aid, as Jens Rehländer describes in an article in the Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper from May this year (1). It was stated that the guidelines would “make statements that go far beyond the topic of communication,” such as “transparency” and “good scientific practice.” It was declared that these are not related to science communication. Given that public science is oriented towards the common good, this is hard to understand. Besides communication training for scientists and explaining and mediating scientific results, we need to address the integration of the public based on self-reflection of researchers and developers in science and business as well as the responsibility for the results as an individual in Academia and industry.

To communicate Quantum Technology, we face additional unique challenges: Digital technologies rule today’s world, driven by zeros and ones but it is composed of quanta, the smallest physical units, the quantum, as the carrier of all physical interactions. The exploration of Quantum Technology lies on the boundary between challenging subdisciplines from physics, engineering, and informatics. Researchers communicate the counterintuitive observations and experimental results in quantum mechanics using mathematical language. This has implications for teaching and understanding: currently, quantum physics is taught from a theoretical viewpoint, with a mathematical approach. To establish foundations for understanding quantum technologies it is essential “to develop concepts for a more intuitive approach, (…), and allow a(n) (…) even playful approach to quantum physics,” according to a specialized publication of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research in Germany in 2018. (2)

Artists and designers create their own languages and metaphors to explore, to discover, and face even the contradictions in human communication and existence. Does thinking occur in images, abstract symbols according to mathematical logic or words? Is imagery fundamental in thinking or have mental images no causal role in thought processes? Is it accurate to think of the mind as a symbol-manipulating machine? Quantum Logos aims to ease access to the counterintuitive phenomena of quantum reality. They all underlie the universe’s natural structures, from the waves of inanimate matter to the vivid systemic photosynthesis in plants to the human brain and consciousness, which seem to produce the results of quantum physical measurements. Can we explores the basics of quantum theory as expressed through cultural archetypes within an immersive, reactive audio-visual experience?

1 Das unterschätzte Gespräch mit Politik und Gesellschaft, Jens Rehländer, in: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung für Deutschland , 16.05.2019.

2 Quantum technologies – from basic research to market, A federal Government Framework Program, Specialized Publication of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, September 2018.

QUANTUM TECHNOLOGY WILL SHAPE SOCIETY  by Bob Kastner

“Our ancestors painted hunting scenes on cave walls and probably increased their survival rate. We all enjoyed the performance in this marvelous cave down there: You the participants, the artists, scientists, the producers, all entangled in the Ars Electronica Deep Space 8K, the 21stcentury cave.” 

Bob Kastner

I . Scientific research

In quantum physics “we are in the situation of sailors, who ended up in a far away country … with a very strange language. The only option is to carefully feel how to find one´s way in the dark.” This could be an artists quote – but it´s not. The Nobel laureate in physics (1932) Werner Heisenberg, exploring the far away country of particles and waves, described his limitations with this sailor metaphor.

2. Sizes & dimensions

If you reach out for the Nobel Prize in quantum physics, you have to work with atoms and even smaller quanta and quarks. This world behaves strange, against our human logic and indeed we do not really “understand” the quantum universe. Human evolution did not equip us with senses for the atomic and subatomic environment. Elementary particles are invisible and don´t smell. The hydrogen atom performs on a stage of 10-10meters. Do we need to learn about dark matter or black holes?  Why should we care about photons and their wave-particle duality?

II . Quantum industry

Scientific challenges are ahead but it is notable that quantum physics increasingly became a matter of engineering. Quantum Tech Industry is still in an early stage but governments and private investors recognize the revolutionary technology. Investments are reasonable which means two things: Quantum applications are within sight, and the pace of development is strongly increasing.

More than 10.000 people world-wide, with a combined yearly budget far over $2 biln, are involved in quantum technology R&D. These figures are exponentially increasing with governmental funding, with start-ups and corporate business looking for new profit streams. The race is on for quantum computers, quantum communication and quantum simulation. Are we users, followers or objects for governments and market segments for business? Are we on the driving seat or flying blind in the dark?

III .  Applications

Quantum Computers are more than just supercomputers equipped with advanced processing power. They will be applied for complex computation producing quick decisions in real time applications – self drive cars, Internet of Things (IoT), military drones, financial trading within milliseconds. Imagine a global phonebook: A classical computer would search country after country followed by cities and then by single lines of names. A quantum computer will assess each line of this phonebook simultaneously and could present results within seconds. Quantum computers are faster – a billion times faster! And they work fundamentally different.

Quantum sensors will be utilized in material analysis, medical diagnosis or real time weather forecasts. Commercial investments are expected in underground mapping of natural resources. Currently engineers take years to optimize industrial applications like aircraft´s wings. The defense industry will develop materials for an advanced stealth technology. Satellite and submarine detection are on the military wish list. Gravity sensors will lead to a kind of “Gravitation Google Maps” to guide aircrafts and drones. Quantum simulation will change chemistry and biology research. This will lead to new pharmaceutical drug design. Quantum simulators will support biochemists to optimize drug applications against diseas

Financial markets and portfolio performance rely on analyst´s assumptions and algorithms based on probabilities. Quantum computing identifies attractive portfolios and provides financial forecasting models. In the stock market theater quantum computers will support real time portfolio optimization. Quantum sensors and quantum simulation will work far beyond today´s digital computers and algorithms. Artificial intelligence (AI) will integrate the technology of wavy particles and granular waves. Quantum phenomena of superposition, entanglement and tunneling will pave the way to revolutionary new applications, that we have not even dreamed of yet. What are the objectives of governments and corporate business? Are we prepared for an informed opinion?

IV . Science–society gap

Future science will get even more complex. Quantum technology will lead to manifold challenges ahead.  Let me remind you that civil society had no idea where theories of relativity (Einstein) – and quantum physics (Niels Bohr, Heisenberg and not to forget Lise Meitner) – civil society had no idea, where scientific theories would finally lead us and right now it´s still a foggy road ahead. Already in the 20thcentury we ended up in a first revolutionary development of atomic bombs and nuclear power plants. The second quantum revolution is on the doorstep and still civil society has no globally agreed perspectives. Let´s take efforts to develop informed opinions to facilitate responsible decisions.  Quantum Travelers modestly intend to bridge the gap between science and society. We communicate technology with our visual, verbal and sonic narratives. We try to move complex science results into mainstream.

Our ancestors painted hunting scenes on cave walls and probably increased their survival rate. We all enjoyed the performance in this marvelous cave down there: You the participants, the artists, scientists, the producers, all entangled in the Ars Electronica Deep Space 8K, the 21stcentury cave.

Quantum Logos (vision serpent) ARTIST REFLECTION
by Mark Chavez

Logos,”(Greek”: “word,” “reason,” or “plan”) plural logoi, in Greek philosophy and theology, the divine reason implicit in the cosmos, ordering it and giving it form and meaning.^(Britannica) 

The Greek term Logos have been used for more than 2000 years, means, reasoned discourse; the divine reason implicit in the cosmos, ordering it and giving it form and meaning. Is it possible to find an interesting aesthetic approach to a rather abstract and invisible knowledge of quantum theory? 

Mark Chavez

“Quantum Logos (vision serpent) is our attempt to use cultural archetypes or metaphors to explain quantum physics.  We use images as poetry to represent the quantum world. When we examined visualizations on the nature of existence made by early cultures and found that many shared common design traits with graphically represented math in contemporary quantum physics.”  

Mark Chavez 

Quantum theory challenges our fundamental assumptions about reality. Whether it believes that gravity warps time and space, or that the world does not exist independently of our observations of it, quantum physics is a challenge now as it was for Einstein and scientists of his day. Since the surrealism, artists have been engaging with the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics for creating mind-expanding digital performances. Art is continuing in helping us in understanding counterintuitive concepts of space, relativity, and dissonances of the physical world.

The Los Angeles and Singapore based media artists duo Mark Chavez and Ina Conradi teamed up with Germany based sci-art producer and developer Bianka Hofmann and Vienna based science communicator Bob Kastner, to form the art-sci collective Quantum Travelers.

The collective’s long term aim is to use cultural metaphors to artistically describe ambitious and crucial scientific concepts with an emphasis on describing scientific insights in Quantum theory that have a real and substantial effect on society and culture. The first result from this collaboration, the immersive, interactive artwork named Quantum Logos will premier in the Deep Space during this year’s Ars Electronica festival. The art-sci interactive experience Quantum Logos explores how the basics of quantum-theory expressed with cultural archetypes could shed new insights into natural phenomena, questioning what is the nature of existence through scientific observation. Besides the process behind the artwork, the talk will highlight preliminary experiments into the integration of art-sci with the teaching curriculum in Nanyang Technological University Singapore. The goal is to create a new awareness in the interconnection between the realm of art and science for an innovative media art education.