Quantum Art & Uncertainty

Paul Thomas is a Professor of Fine Art at UNSW Art and Design. He is the Director of the Studio for Transdisciplinary Art Research (STAR) and is the instigator of the Transdisciplinary Imaging Conference series 2010–2018. In 2000, he instigated and was the founding Director of the Biennale of Electronic Arts Perth 2002, 2004 and 2007. Thomas is a pioneer of transdisciplinary art practice. His current practice led research takes not only inspiration from nanoscience and quantum theory, but actually operates there. Thomas’s current research ‘Quantum Consciousness’ is based on the experiments being conducted by Professor Andrea Morello, Quantum Nanosystems, UNSW, looking at immersing the viewer in a visualization and sonification of quantum phenomena in the development of quantum computing. He has exhibited nationally and internationally with his previous nano artworks Mulitverse based on Richard Feynman’s diagrams of photons reflecting from a mirror, Nanoessence which explored the space between life and death at a nano level and Midas which researched what is transferred when skin touches gold at a nano level. His current publications are, Nanoart: The Immateriality of Art, Reconfiguring Space, Relive Media art Histories, co-edited with Sean Cubitt, Interference Strategies and Cloud and Molecular Aesthetics co-edited with Lanfranco Aceti and Edward Colless.

Acknowledgments 

Foreword 



Between Nothingness and Eternity

Timothy Morton



Introduction
The Quantum Atmospherics of Consciousness



Chapter 1: The Swerve
Agency of the swerve 

Measurement and control 

The Solvay rupture 

Capturing reality 

The unpredictable swerve 

Counterfactual definiteness of art 

Swerve speed 

Quantum biology
 
Chapter 2: The Diagram 

Convergence 

Diagram and the new language 

The line 

The flexible diagram 

Entanglement and space 

Multiverse 

Multiverse and parallel worlds 

Probability of facts 

In aid of the diagram
Photonic traces 

Bergson’s diagram and quantum parallels 

Bacon’s synergies
 
Chapter 3: Spin 

Quantum spin 

The creativity of the spin 

Quantum consciousness 

Consciousness and the swerve 

Chapter 4: The Graphene Moment 

The genealogy of graphite 

The haptic Atomic Force Microscope 

Agency and mediums 

The art of graphite

Drawing out 

Performative agency 


Chapter 5: Cloud 

The itinerant cloud 

Shifting power of perspective 

Pre-cloud conscious 

Repositioning the cloud 

The machinic whole 

Engineer’s perspective


Conclusion 

Fragments 

References 

Author’s Biography 

Index