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23Rd Generative Art Conference XXIII Generative Art Conference - GA2020 Entangled? Frieder Nake’s Probabilities Versus Quantum Computing Artistic Research Gaëtan Robillard, PhD candidate INREV, AIAC Université Paris 8, France LDI ESAD TALM-Tours, France e-mail: [email protected] Prof. Alain Lioret, Professor INREV, AIAC Université Paris 8, France. e-mail: [email protected] __________________________________________________ of the many possible results. It is contingent – it belongs to an infinite class of probable images. Quantum Computing is a relatively new field in informatics. It began in the early 1980s, when physicist Paul Benioff proposed a quantum mechanical model of the Turing machine. Richard Feynman and Yuri Manin later suggested that a quantum computer could perform simulations that are out of reach for regular computers. Quantum computing Abstract is the use of quantum-mechanical phenomena such as superposition and Frieder Nake is one of the most entanglement to perform computation. prominent pioneer artists in computer art. The essential difference with classical Both carefully constructed and computing is the nature of information intertwined in a complex manner, his itself. Instead of a 0 or a 1, the unit of works are mainly based on the quantum computing, called the qubit, is programming of drawing processes and based on the oscillation of its state the use of abstract geometrical forms. In between the two values. the programs that he conceives, each In this paper, we are discussing the visual character corresponds to variable relations that can be traced between the parameters. The selection of these generative probabilistic approach of parameters uses random variables Frieder Nake and few principles that are selected by computation of mathematical found in quantum computing, such as probability densities. Through statistical superposition of states and probabilistic calculation, the artistic gesture becomes operations on quantum information. At both open and determinant. The the beginning of computer art in the generative image is the realization of one page 1 XXIII Generative Art Conference - GA2020 sixties, the mathematical use of of totally innovative methods for randomness played an essential role. If Information Technology. It is also Frieder Nake found in classical important to understand that its value computing and in such methods a new increases in the field of creativity. field for artistic research, what can we Quantum computing technology should expect from investigating quantum not be considered superior to classical computation with an aesthetic purpose? computing in the realm of computational The paper explores this question moving creativity, but just different, with new from the present to the past and going types of algorithms. back. It finally discusses the potentials of artistic research in the field of quantum Quantum computing is therefore computing. gradually developing in several sectors, including the very important ones of cryptography, artificial intelligence, banking, biology and the army, of course. Quantum computing progresses both as 1. Quantum Computing in visual a new digital machine and as a field of art and creativity new algorithms and computer languages Quantum physics has revolutionized our working on this machine. worldview for just over a century. Often misunderstood, and sometimes misused, We are interested here in the algorithmic quantum physics has led us in particular part. Much has grown since its beginning, to quantum computing. It was in the in particular the famous algorithms of 1980s that Richard Feynman [17] and a Shor and Grover [26]. At the beginning of few other scientists [24][10] started the 21st century, some interesting talking about the quantum computer. attempts were proposed by researchers for developing quantum algorithms in Now, 40 years later, slowly but surely, computer graphics and in 3D renderings quantum computing is emerging. Beyond especially. This is how Andrew Glassner the advent of the quantum computer, new [18][19][20], Marco Lanzagorta [21] and algorithms and new working methods are then Simona Caraiman [14][15] proposed developed. The transition from bits to the first quantum algorithms for 3D qubits is the important evolution, which creation. These works are experimental. above all enables an extraordinary To our knowledge, outcomes are creative capacity. Quantum physics is not unsatisfactory. However, the idea of to be confused with the resulting quantum creating images with quantum computing computation. Today, as soon as the word was born. quantum appears, it is fashionable to be wary. Simultaneously, the first quantum artists or “researcher-artists” began to create However, quantum computing is indeed the first quantum works. It is difficult to becoming real in our technological say who the first really was, because environments. Beyond all the some are only using the concept to extraordinary announced potentials, it is produce works while others really are important to understand that this is a set starting to use quantum languages page 2 XXIII Generative Art Conference - GA2020 (mostly in Python, with librairies offered Figure 1, Alain Lioret, Galateia, Quantum by Sympy, QuTip, and Qiskit – a module Image Creation. based on IBM computers, Rigetti Forest, etc.). His work has inspired many authors and scientists who will go even further, Among noticeable pioneer artists of including David Bohm who does not quantum computer art, we can list Julian hesitate to relate particle physics to ways Voss-Andreae [35], Lynden Stone [33], of thinking and therefore to creativity work Alain Lioret [4] [23] (Figure 1), Paul [12][13] . Thomas [34], and Libby Heaney [40]. Through their artworks or their papers, The emergence of a new form of art in attempts to define a quantum culture [16] relation to the evolution of science and or a quantum aesthetic [25] are computer technology has already a proposed. history. In the sixties, while first computers were introduced in university All of these artists work with the laboratories in Europe, young inherently probabilistic aspect of quantum mathematicians saw an opportunity to physics. It is not a question here of pioneer new types of artwork. Already at speaking of randomness, but of that time, radical changes in the science, probabilities. Thus our world would be especially in the statistical physics of much less deterministic than we thought. particles, gave an impulse for rethinking And artistic creation can also make use research in aesthetics. Randomness of this profound property of our universe. became both a scientific instrument and an artistic endeavor. Quantum representation of the world has dramatically changed views for more than 2. Randomness and probability in a century. Among great physicists and inventors of this new physics, we can Frieder Nake’s artwork mention the major works of Erwin Computer art was made public in Schrödinger, who beyond his famous cat, Stuttgart in 1965. Much influenced by was one of the first to describe life as cybernetician Norbert Wiener and the determined by quantum physics [30][31]. shift in statistical science [41], Max In Mind and Matter and then What is Bense, a physicist, a poet and a Life?, Schrödinger opens doors to a philosopher, founded the generative creativity model that would be quantum. aesthetic with an exhibition in the Technical University of Stuttgart and a publication in the experimental *Rot* edition [42]. Influenced by Max Bense’s theories, the computer graphic works of Georg Nees and Frieder Nake were shown together in 1965 in the Wendelin gallery in Stuttgart. For the first time, computers were involved in a process resulting in the making of artistic images. The detailed analysis of these early page 3 XXIII Generative Art Conference - GA2020 works enables a critical understanding in the relations between algorithms, randomness and art. As a student in mathematics in the early sixties, Frieder Nake attended many lectures by Max Bense. From 1965 and on, Nake became an acclaimed artist in the emergent field of computer art. His works were shown in Germany and abroad, in important exhibitions such as Cybernetic Serendipity in London, or Tendencies 4: Computers and Visual Research at the New Tendencies Biennial in Zagreb. Both exhibitions were happening in 1968. In 1970 his works were then exhibited in the Venice Biennial. Later in 1971, Nake criticized computer art in a short essay: There Should be no Computer Art [43]. His critique focused on the commodification of computer art and the lack of perspective in this field of creation. He Figure 2. Frieder Nake, Rechteckschraffuren nevertheless remains one of the most n° 3, 1965, colored computer graphic, pne prolific early computer artists. plotter with ink (black, brown) on paper, 19.2 x 29 cm, Bremen, *Kunsthalle*, Herbert W. Franke. Software : COMPART ER56 ; Nake’s work is based on the Hardware : Standard Elektrik Lorenz ER56 ; programming of drawing processes Plotter : ZUSE-Graphomat Z64. resulting in abstract geometrical forms. Using lines, squares, hatchings, his Rechteckschraffuren No. 3 [Rectangular works usually present two dimensional Hatchings] (Figure 2) is an abstract and spaces that are both constructed and geometrical work in small format, based intertwined. The use of color is also a on the distribution of random values significant element in Nake’s work according to defined mathematical laws. considering limitations of the time. During It consists of a set of twenty areas of
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