IBIOCAT Science&Art- JULIAN VOSS-ANDREAE: former Quantum Physicist, now Science-Artist

Julian Voss-Andreae, a former Quantum Physicist who now works as a sculptor in Portland (Oregon), seeks to integrate the molecular sciences with the visual arts. Despite his background, much of Voss-Andreae's work is inspired by molecular structures. He graduated  from  the Pacific Northwest College of Art in 2004.  While still in Art College, he developed a novel kind of sculpture based on the structure of proteins, the building blocks of life. One of his latest piece is a metre-and-a-half tall sculpture of an ion channel, commissioned by Roderick MacKinnon of Rockefeller University in New York, who shared a Nobel prize for

elucidating its structure. As a graduate student at the University of Vienna, he was one of the team led by Anton Zeilinger that conducted a ground-breaking experiment in quantum mechanics in 1999. Quantum physics describes a moving object as consisting of waves oriented perpendicular to its direction of motion. Drawing inspiration from that aspect of nature, Julian Voss-Andreae has created an image of a walking human as a quantum object, Quantum Man (2006). Made up of thin, vertically oriented steel sheets representing those waves, the 2.50 m tall sculpture is a metaphor for the counter-intuitive world of quantum physics. Symbolizing the dual nature of matter with the appearance of classical reality on the surface and cloudy quantum behavior underneath, the sculpture seems to consist of solid steel when seen from the front, but dissolves into almost nothing when seen from the side, as light shines through the spaces between the slabs. "It shows that when you look at things from a different perspective, they can look extremely different," says Anton Zeilinger, physicist at the University of Vienna and Voss-Andreae's former group leader. "That's part of the quantum message".

 

Learn more about Voss-Andreae's art, by visiting his official web site:

 http://www.julianvossandreae.com

 

Read the following journal articles about him:

 

Julie Wallace "Protein Sculptures for the People", AWIS Magazine (Spring 2008) .pdf (500 KB)

 

Philip Ball "The crucible: Art inspired by science should be more than just a pretty picture", Chemistry World (March 2008) .pdf (700 KB)

To view photos of "Quantum Man" (2006) click here

(Please note that all information about Julian Voss-Andreae is taken from his website).

 

Laura Cipollina- IBIOCAT, Divisione Marketing e Commerciale