Now you see it, now you don't.
Artist combines sculpture and quantum physics.
Julian Voss-Andreae, Spannungsfeld, 2014
Spannungsfeld is located aptly outside the Physics and Nanotechnology Building at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, MN.
Julian Voss-Andreae’s sculptures seem to disappear into thin air, depending on where the viewer is situated. Drawing direct inspiration from the artist's background in quantum physics, these creations are made up of vertically oriented, thin stainless steel sheets, which confers them a light quality and appearance despite the use of solid metal.
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It’s important for me to bring the things we know from science into a world we experience with our senses. At the end of the day what counts to me is to do it and experience it. Julian Voss-Andreae
Reader, 2020
Sunyata, 2014
Sunyata translates as 'emptiness' or 'without form'. The teaching of sunyata helps Buddhists to understand that there is no fixed, stable self, and the universe is neither fixed nor stable either. This is because everything is dependent on something else (dependent origination) and nothing has form of its own. (bitesize)
Quantum Mediation, 2018
"Science does not know its debt to imagination" – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Elective Affinities, 2018
Say
How is the concept and sculpture Sunyata like Quantum Physics?
In what ways does this sculpture challenge your perception of reality and the physical world?
How does the disappearing quality of Voss-Andreae’s sculptures influence your interpretation of them?
Do
Quantum Physics for Dummies- (very simple to understand)
See how Julian Voss-Andreae is inspired by quantum physics
About Julian Voss-Andreae
Julian Voss-Andreae, a German sculptor based in Portland (Oregon, USA) is widely known for his striking large-scale public and private commissions often blending figurative sculpture with scientific insights into the nature of reality. His sculptures are frequently shown at international art fairs and galleries and can be found in major collections all over the world. Voss-Andreae’s work has been featured in print and broadcast media worldwide and videos of his sculpture have gone viral with tens of millions of views. His expertise in diverse fields of science and a deep passion for the mysteries of the world have been a continual source of inspiration for his work.
Prior to his art career, Julian Voss-Andreae studied quantum physics and philosophy at the Universities of Berlin and Edinburgh. As a graduate student at the University of Vienna, Voss-Andreae was one of the small team led by 2022 Nobel Prize Laureate Anton Zeilinger that conducted a ground-breaking experiment in quantum mechanics in 1999. The researchers showed that even molecules as big as C-60 “Buckyballs” can reveal their fundamentally quantum nature under the right conditions. Zeilinger’s group found that a beam of them, passed through a diffraction grating, will exhibit the purely wavelike property of interference. Subsequent experiments showed how interactions with the environment (in the form of infrared photons and background gas of different densities) will gradually wash away the ‘quantum-ness’ thanks to the process of decoherence, which is now recognized as the way the classical world emerges from the quantum.
julianvossandreae.com, Follow on Instagram, Interview on Art Squat with Johnny Otto
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