Conference Exhibition: My portrait of Professor Caslav Brukner ‘A Parable Of A Physicist And Twin Torsos’, University Of Surrey Sept 2012 UK
‘A Parable of a Physicist With Twin Torsos: A Portrait of Professor Caslav Brukner” , 2012, acrylic painting, screen print on canvas
This was a wonderful collaboration for my painting A Parable of A Physicist And Twin Torsos, with text from myself and Professor Caslav Brukner of the Faculty of Physics at the University of Vienna included in the poster session of a new workshop on quantum biology at The Institute of Advanced Studies at The University of Surrey in the UK titled "Quantum Biology: Current Status and Opportunities” (click on the cover to the left) " September 17 & 18, 2012. It's my second invitation to participate at Surrey's IAS this year, and as with their last workshop, the line up of participants exploring this cutting edge subject come from different disciplines and are each extraordinary opportunities to exchange ideas.
Statement by Assoc Prof. Caslav Brukner, University of Vienna, 2012
"In classical physics and everyday life every object has well-defined properties on its own. Every dice has its well defined faces, and every person has its own individuality. According to quantum theory, however, two or more entangled objects can have perfectly defined joint properties at the expense of losing their individual properties. This is like having two persons with no individual properties, no phenotype, no character, until they are subject to observation, upon which they obtain a random but same face, same character, same gender, i.e. they become identical twins. Likewise two entangled dices have no orientation on its own until they are measured, upon which they show the same random side up."
Statement by Artist Carl Gopalkrishnan, Australia, 2012
Caslav and I have shared correspondences about quantum physics and art since 2006 when I first started making the link with the quantum world and our human gaze. This painting, The Parable of a Physicist and Twin Torsos, is part of a new series which explores the spiritual dimension of our post-human consciousness. How will engineered life come to pass, and how might quantum entanglement influence this immaculate concept?
The germ of this theme began with a storyline around solar storms and actual replica torsos used by NASA and the European Space Agency called Fred and Matryoshka that reminded me of Romulus and Remus, the mythical founders of ancient Rome, used to investigate the effects of this radiation on astronauts. This opened other questions for me like how these eruptions might affect our DNA and if the way we conceive of ‘human’, ‘non-human’ and ‘machine’ is all linked at the quantum level. So, that’s how The Twins came about and Caslav became those twins in my painting. The DNA question continued in reference to the gene synthesis company Blue Heron, that also appear as actual birds.
The rest emerged from my dreams – especially the two nuclear submarines (Typhoon Class). When I completed it, I noticed there 2 of everything, like two entangled particles. A lot came out through the back door (my subconscious). And in that sense, I really did channel the Surrealists in the way that the pictorial elements emerged. But the ‘two-of-everything’ also reminded me of Noah’s Ark, and thus my biblical reference to a parable, where the physicist is performing an unusually spiritual function, so the whole idea of biology and entanglement together gave the painting this feeling of a [arable. And in the context of a new series of paintings, this is a “thought-in-progress’.
Caslav is very generous and inspiring and understood about the lens, because the act of looking (the gaze) is integral to both entanglement theory and to this painting [Carl Gopalkrishnan, Australia, 2012].
