My “Complementarity Principle”

..From a conventional point of view, as a visual artist perceiving a classical world (not quantum), my occupation, as a picture maker, is simply to put things together to make art (for  whatever that is)..So here below is a picture I create and named “My “complementary principle“”….. So what has Art to do with Complementary  which is a quantum concept ?

Portrait of a kibbutz member

                                      Particle…………………………………..and…………………………………Wave

Well, I will go straight to the point. The Danish physicist Bohr one of the founding fathers of quantum mechanics coined the word “complementary”  meaning among others: particle and wave, (There is more to that..) Well as a fan of Science Fiction, seeking after a connection between art  and quantum mechanics, I found the following text:  “From Cubist Simultaneity to Quantum Complementarity by” Christophe Schinckus.

The abstract says:

“This article offers a contribution to the history of scientific ideas by proposing an epistemological argument supporting the assumption made by Miller whereby Niels Bohr has been influenced by cubism (Jean Metzinger) when he developed his non-intuitive complementarity principle. More specifically, this essay will identify the Bergsonian durée as the conceptual bridge between Metzinger and Bohr. Beyond this conceptual link between the painter and the physicist [etc…].” ...See here for the full text.

So…I the visual artist  looking after a connection between me  and the weird quantum mechanics… and he, Niels Bohr the  prize Nobel physicist, doing the same in reverse, as by  Miller’s assumption,  was influenced by cubism (Jean Metzinger) when he developed his non-intuitive complementarity principle….??

Today it is common practice that some scientists are also artist and that a minority of artist are very curious about quantum mechanics’s potential to make art.. (See here) So for me it’s not an  unusual coincidence…

Now,  I presume that I am 95% classical (not quantum) in every day mode. I perceive science and my own art making on the same epistemic and ontological  footing: they share together  the same Newtonian  space and time (for all practical purpose) and share Einsteins Relativity for light speed, not very practical in my atelier… but my above picture’s name point to the fact that I somehow mentioned my quantum attributes: particle (myself) + wave (myself) in my  ordinary every day life..Is it factually correct? Or is it Science Fiction like the movies “Interstellar” and “Blade Runner 2049…………….

The 95% classical and 5% quantum appearance of myself and Noah

 Let’s see,  I quote from the article: “Scientists take next step towards observing quantum physics in real life”

..”Small objects like electrons and atoms behave according to quantum mechanics, with quantum effects like superposition, entanglement and teleportation. One of the most intriguing questions in modern science is if large objects – like a coffee cup – could also show this behavior. Scientists at the TU Delft have taken the next step towards observing quantum effects at everyday temperatures in large objects. They created a highly reflective membrane, visible to the naked eye, that can vibrate with hardly any energy loss at room temperature. The membrane is a promising candidate to research quantum mechanics in large objects.”  Read more at...

Now I am a large object like the coffee cup, so there is in me some leftovers of quantumness ..that I can not see and feel but that I can imagine in the same way Rene Magritte’s painting “This is not a pipe” or in the  “My Quantum Complementarity” picture.

To resume…Remembering that the majority of artist,  galleries, art schools, museums, critics, curators, art magazines, lives in the explicit classical world (non quantum), don’t raise the question of why we live in a classical world that perhaps implicitly is manufactured in the quantum world does not mean that our every day perceptions are absolute. And more to that, that new “visual concepts” on the verge of science fiction can  factually be  create taking into account the “implicit” back stage of the quantum weirdness.

So the whole  above story,  my be condensed in  a few words “The Translation from the Quantum (microscopic weird world) to the Classical (our old good world)”  implies that without the quantum  back stage there is no old good world… and that the art world with her whole machinery  artist,  galleries, art schools, museums, critics, curators, art magazines, is included in and comes from the quantum….so what can a curious visual artist (me) do with that… if not make another art closer to a more fundamental “reality”. Our own good old reality being perhaps only an approximation an average (like temperature)….Its fun.

The sum over histories of my life