The Quantum Graininess of Nature


The Quantum Graininess of Nature
2019
Two-channel high-definition digital video
30:00 min each (looped), 16:9, colour, sound
Edition of 6 + 2 AP

The one essential component of science, philosophy, and art is the ‘new’, which is achieved by endlessly analysing the ways in which humans experience (and project upon) the world. Or, as Niels Henrik David Bohr—one of the founders of quantum theory—claimed, physics isn’t about finding out how or what nature is; rather, it is about what we can say about nature. Romantic painters, for instance, favoured nature and plein air painting and were particularly interested in sky and atmosphere, and placed emphasis on emotions such as awe—especially as experienced when confronting the beauty of nature. For me, the (connecting) space between science, philosophy, and art is metaphysics, because it can be boiled down to two questions: What is there? And what is it like? This is what all humans throughout all ages have attempted to answer and is—as a total speculation—why contemporary humans attempt to view, process, and make sense of the world, or the Mona Lisa, through smartphones and mobile phone photography. It is also why the pixel—and the use of pixel to imagine, digitally manipulate, and create contemporary landscapes—is perhaps the only way I can view, interpret, and make sense of the world. Besides, for me, landscapes don’t reveal time and place; instead, they reveal more universal and fundamental questions (and not necessarily answers), and this is what interested me.

* The footage was captured on China’s famed high-speed rail network while on a journey from Changsha to Shanghai.