At the Grand Palais, Laure Prouvost Translates Quantum Physics Into Something You Can Feel
Art has always enhanced the imagination and our ability to visualize phenomena that remain beyond our sensory reach, but more recently, this ability of art to impact perception has been embraced by institutions such as MIT and CERN. These and other scientific organizations increasingly recognize artists’ ability to translate complex scientific ideas into more accessible experiences. That interdisciplinary thinking is at the root of LAS Foundation’s latest endeavor, which offers artists the opportunity to explore and engage with, on their own terms, the expertise science has so far developed in the realm of quantum physics.
As part of the program, French artist Laure Prouvost has taken over the Grand Palais in Paris, after premiering in Berlin and later being shown at OGR in Turin. Conceived in collaboration with Tobias Rees and Hartmut Neven, founder of Google Quantum A.I., and developed over two years of research, Laure Prouvost’s multisensory installation “WE FELT A STAR DYING,” here retitled “Nous, frissons d’étoiles” (transl: “We, star-swept shivers”), is a pioneering exploration of the artistic possibilities of quantum computing, translated into a multisensory experience of images, sounds and scents through the poetic, sentimental mythopoiesis of the artist’s practice.
The entire installation is an exercise in understanding the individual self as part of a symbiotic and symbolic ecosystem: the entanglement of entities, forces and energies that quantum physics already suggests. In the Grand Palais, Prouvost invites visitors on a journey into matter, from the micro to the macro realms, staging a series of seemingly random prompts, clues and allegories that encourage an understanding of reality as grounded in probability and entanglement rather than determinism.
“Quantum needs a conceptual and perceptual shift and a new language,” Prouvost asserted during the press preview. In a separate conversation with Observer, she elaborated further. The multisensory installation, which combines video, sculpture, sound, scent and light, is the result of three years of discussions with experts during which she constantly asked herself how she could even articulate this idea of quantum, and of quantum computing. “This Newtonian training that we have—this whole evolution of humanity—is suddenly turned upside down.”
Eventually, she realized that her work had already been dealing with it, without pointing to it directly or presenting it as the protagonist. Perhaps that’s why she is one of the first artists to engage with these seemingly unattainable truths about the very structure of the universe.
“It is this connection of: we are we, we are one. This idea of togetherness, of no limit between things—no limit between the sole of our shoes and the concrete we touch through the sole; no limit between the cat coming to tickle you, trying to get a stroke, or the
When it came to translating complex research into sensorial terms, she immediately envisioned a piece encompassing fabric and kinetic movement: “It became about touch and feeling what is around. “It disappears and reappears, blinds us and confuses us as well, because it does not have a rational way of acting or reacting.”
The show as a whole is anchored by a large, jellyfish-like sculpture. Prouvost describes the work, which she refers to as ‘she’ and not ‘it,’ as neither human-like nor object-like but as a presence. “The more I talked about it, the more interesting it became, because as humans, we put our emotions into things. We ask: ‘Is the wood feeling something?’” she reflected. “In the end, maybe it does not have that biological sensation, but the world exists on so many levels that are not articulated by human words. She is this, she is there.”
With movements reminiscent of an orchestra conductor or the shaman of a secret ritual, the work choreographs its own strange orbit: mechanical arms fluctuate and circulate around the space, suspending clusters that resemble geological formations, meteorites or satellites, each one built from particles and traces of organic matter arranged as if by chaotic, entropic drift.
In a ballet of entanglements, Prouvost attempts to translate the quantum notion of qubits (or as she describes them, “cute bits”): basic units of information in a quantum computer, always fluctuating, as the state of each is linked to the state of another, even if they are separated. When one is measured, the relationship between them helps determine the outcome. “I give them the job of being interlaced, intertwined,,” Prouvost explained. “If one moves down, the other moves up. It is this idea of spinning, with qubits in a quantum computer: they always work in teams.” Quantum computers, in fact, are generally sensitive to changes in their environment, including the presence of cosmic radiation, which can introduce tiny variations of energy into the system.
The ensemble of works—primarily sculpture and moving image—forms its own harmonious choreography, or constellation, where matter in flux moves into its next stage. “The more you look at the world, the more you see these duos,” she reflected. “Even love is a connection between two things. Usually love makes you click with something that goes beyond rational thought.” The Beginning, the monumental kinetic sculpture with six limbs, animated by sound and light, is simultaneously omnipresent and evanescent, imposing and fragile, cosmic and terrestrial.
Around it, some qubits take the form of headphones, through which you can hear their voice and smell their metallic and mineral scent. Throughout the space, sensory stimuli contribute to this multilayered immersion: the sound is spatialized, mutating as you move, to create an ever-changing experience. The filaments hanging from the tentacles of her gentle jellyfish brush against your skin, unpredictably, as you pass; the dazzling spotlights, meanwhile, change, relentlessly or very slowly, depending on the meteorological conditions of Paris, a moody, weather-dependent city. These shift between states at random, evoking the sensitivity and unpredictability of quantum systems.
When it was first presented in Berlin at Kraftwerk, a power station, the installation appeared as a nebula immersed in darkness, which aligned with the original title. Here, instead, it is luminous; Prouvost found it fascinating to restage this work in this specific location. “It is almost like we got too close to the star and it is blinding us. In the Grand Palais, you can almost see everything, but also cannot see it. It burns your eyes. It is so bright when the sun hits, and with the heat you are melting and almost cannot think. You are like a qubit floating. You realize the power of the elements and how they control us.”
“We are the elements, we are lights, we are part of a fabric,” the artist added. It is dizzying to experience, sometimes overstimulating, and so there are material anchorages: the reliefs formed by the platforms and other sandbanks, and the cushions on which you can lie while watching a video in a dark space—yet another change in perspective required to fully appreciate her journey into the fertile interchange between micro and macro, from the infinitely small to the infinitely large. “The idea was to have no horizon, to have no sense of negative or positive, of one or zero. It was about a sensation without limit,” she explained. The film begins with bodies, fabric, skin, sweat, breath and shared air, then gradually shifts into ground, worm, building, nature, cat and bird. Close-ups of shimmering
The research, according to Prouvost, was focused on the idea of being in two states simultaneously, of trespassing frontiers we thought could not be trespassed scientifically. “It is the sense that even we ourselves might be able to have a foot somewhere else, or think of someone very far away and still feel that they exist, that they are there; that you are passing on energy, processing a connection… The question becomes whether humans can mentally become other beings, even if such a transformation remains difficult. I think all of this has been pushed away by our Newtonian, mechanical way of education. Through this work, I think we can sense that it has always been there. Quantum has been there since the beginning.”
Across the instation, Prouvost gives sensory form to very complex information, data and knowledge that we are trying to build or reconnect with. Yet, when asked about her collaboration with scientists and philosophers, Prouvost pushed against the notion that she was simply translating scientific research into art. “It is about accessibility, but I also do not want to illustrate an idea. I always said, I am not going to translate what you are doing literally, but I am going to feel something and share a poem of that thought process and feeling.”
She acknowledged that it was a challenge. With the philosopher and the scientists, she talked mostly about words. “It was fascinating, questioning together which word can describe those new notions, to describe in completely different terms the phenomena around us. The words we have are actually quite Newtonian and rational. It is almost as if we need a new lexicon, or another way of articulating things,” she considered. “For me they are like clay. You push them and question them.”
In that sense, her process paralleled the work of scientists and philosophers trying to imagine new perspectives and a new epistemology. “It’s a new world. Or the world was always there, but we did not articulate it before, or we lost the ability to do so,” she said, pointing to the fact that most ancient societies, and ancestral and Indigenous knowledge systems, had already better approached it.
When we asked what kind of relationship she hopes visitors will have with the work, Prouvost admitted the encounter will inevitably change according to time, weather and bodily condition. But this was part of the entire experiment. More broadly, she wanted visitors to feel the Grand Palais’s immensity, as well as moments of intimacy through the film, sound, smell and sensory details. The route is open, and viewers may follow different sounds, movements and perceptions. “I wanted to create a sense of freedom, where you can take whichever route you decide to take. You might perceive a little sound in the distance or on the right. You have to open many senses.”
Taking in the installation is quite a lot of work for the visitor as well, she acknowledged, because they have to engage with and experience so much—not just this big visual thing being present, but also the elements, the sweat, your body, the weight of your body on the ground, the gathering of brains together. It is an exercise in re-attuning to the entangled system of relations and reactions constantly unfolding around us. It is, ultimately, a choice; the encounter is open-ended. A visitor can engage or not engage, but the work continues to exist around them. Prouvost compared this fact to quantum itself: whether one chooses to feel it or not, it is still breathing, vibrating and channeling everything within and outside ourselves.
“Nature, after all, has always been a huge part of my practice. You should see where I am. I will send you a picture after this,” Prouvost exclaimed, when we caught up a few weeks after our meeting. She was in Brazil, where this work has found a permanent home at a foundation in the heart of the Amazon forest. “It is so green and so luxurious. They say that if you plant a tree, it will be full of leaves the next week. It has the power and energy of the world, which can surprise us and survive human complexity.” It is all entanglement, and Prouvost is letting both energy and matter take their course, acting as a channel to hopefully awaken more humans to this fundamental truth.
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