How can we explain the phenomenon of quantum entanglement, which ensures that two particles remain connected despite the distance between them? Quebec composer France Jobin and German visual artist Markus Heckmann have attempted an artistic answer, which will be delivered in the dome of the Society for Arts and Technology (SAT). Intriguing, you say?
Entanglement (Or Tangle), which was first presented at the Mutek festival last year as part of the SAT residency program, was born from France Jobin’s, let’s say singular, desire to learn more about the foundations of quantum physics.
During the pandemic, the audio artist even took the opportunity to take classes with a physicist. But why? “Because I love it! It has always inspired me in my audio creations,” she admits, “but my knowledge was superficial, I wanted to go further.”
We return to the charge. In what way does this interest in quantum physics stimulate audio creation?
Quantum physics shows us a certain state of nature, but what we see never corresponds exactly to what is. In the same way, the sounds you are going to hear are not the same as the ones I originally recorded.
France Jobin
This is because France Jobin works with “field recordings” that she then manipulates. “These are ambient noises that we have learned to ignore,” she explains. “Like the noise of a fridge, a fan or an elevator.” She records these sounds, then mixes them with compositions made on a modular synthesizer.
“The particularity of these synthesizers is that it is almost impossible to do the same thing twice,” she continues. “Quantum physics being probability and uncertainty, I also see a link there. We can also draw a parallel with life, which is uncertain…”
The fluidity of time
Very well. But let’s return to the phenomenon of quantum entanglement that the two artists sought to represent. What makes two particles remain connected despite the distance? It is impossible to approach this question without getting lost in laborious scientific explanations… Niels Bohr, the Copenhagen interpretation, Heinsenberg, John Bell… But we won’t go there.
Let’s just say that certain avenues were explored by the artist duo, such as the fluidity of time or the multiverse.
“In quantum physics, the flow of time does not exist,” France Jobin tells us, “so that was our big challenge, because we work with tools that are time-based. However, we had to create a project where people lose the sense of time, which we tried to do through immersion. As for the multiverse, we change audio universes, and to illustrate the concept of superposition, we make the sound travel from one end of the room to the other.”
Markus Heckmann’s visuals are necessarily abstract, but they were created with the audio in mind.
“I had no visual reference to represent particles, so in a way I had absolute freedom, but at the same time I had to hold on to the music to create an emotion,” says this visual artist who works as technical director for the TouchDesigner software.
France Jobin is on her second collaboration with Markus Heckmann. When she attended one of his performances at Mutek Buenos Aires, she had an artistic crush. “My jaw dropped,” she remembers.
There are two things that stand out to me about his aesthetic: his minimalism and his elegance. There is a lot of thought that goes into what he does and it shows. There is a very slow unfolding of his visuals, but everything makes sense. It is like watching an artist paint without ever seeing his hand.
France Jobin, about Markus Heckmann
The visual artist, who lives in Berlin, also has a strong connection with France Jobin. “As soon as I listen to her music, I have visual images. Her work is both simple and complex, but her expression is always clear,” says Markus Heckmann, who collaborated with the band Rush in its early days.
We suggest that they are like these connected particles… despite the distance. They like the image, especially since their collaboration takes place overseas and they never work “in a network”. But this week, the Berlin artist will indeed be in Montreal and the duo will be reunited in the SAT dome. A word to the wise.
From September 3 to 7 in the SAT dome. The performance will also be screened in film mode from September 17 to October 12.
Watch the trailer forEntanglement
Check out the event page