Artwork Record
Quantum Transformation I: Caravaggio (Narciso)
About this work
Revisits Caravaggio's Narcissus (c. 1597–99). Only the lower half, the boy's reflection in the water, is split into a 16 × 13 grid and reordered by a 16-qubit Ising time evolution with random couplings run on ibm_kyoto. The boy now gazes at a scrambled reflection, which the authors read as an analogy for wavefunction collapse under observation.
Technique
Each painting is divided into a square lattice with tile columns assigned to qubits. A Trotterized time evolution under an Ising Hamiltonian runs on IBM superconducting hardware (Qiskit, 4,096 shots, no error mitigation), and the measured ⟨Z⟩ expectation values set the order of the tiles. The chosen result is then painted by hand in oil on wooden panel.
Quantum Systems
Technique drawn from the Quantum Transformation collection.
- Collection
- Quantum Transformation
- Year
- 2025
- Medium
- Oil on wooden panel
- Dimensions
- 70 × 84 cm
- Status
- Exhibited work
References4
Primary links for Arianna Crippa et al. and this work.