Quantum Memories

Quantum Memories is Refik Anadol Studio’s epic scale investigation at the intersection of architecture, machine learning, the aesthetics of probability, and Google AI Quantum Supremacy experiments, exhibited on the largest LED screen that the National Gallery of Victoria has deployed to date. It is a data sculpture that draws upon more than two hundred million publicly available nature-related images, which are used to train a GAN AI algorithm. Refik Anadol Studio then developed a custom software in collaboration with Google AI Quantum Research Team that utilized new ways of using circuit depth data and generated Quantum Noise. This software inspired AI to speculate alternative modalities inside the most sophisticated computer available, and to create new quantum noise- generated datasets as building blocks of these modalities. The artwork is both inspired by and a speculation of the Many-Worlds Interpretation in quantum physics – a theory that proposes there are multiple parallel worlds that exist at the same space and time as our own. Quantum Memories can be considered both a radical visualization of an alternate dimension of the natural world, and of our digitized memories of nature. The 3D visual piece is accompanied by an audio experience that is also based on quantum noise–generated data, offering an immersive experience that further challenges the notion of mutual exclusivity. With this multi-sensory experience, the audience is encouraged to imagine the potential of this exciting new computing technology and the immense opportunities it presents for the future of art, design, and architecture. By proposing the possibility of “post-digital architecture,” it offers a futuristic view of our sense of spaces by moving beyond the integration of media into built forms and translating the logic of a new media technology into spatial design.