The Q-Word - Quantum Art
David Upton, James Davenport, Astrid Park, Harry Kumar, Sarah Selby, and Ola Bamgboye

Summary

David Upton chairs a Computer Arts Society panel exploring what “quantum art” might mean and how artists can engage with an emerging technology often compared to early computer art. James Davenport opens by locating today’s quantum landscape between quantum sensing, already commercially significant, and quantum computing, which is advancing along adiabatic and gate-based paths but remains error-prone. Astrid Park then demonstrates practical, open-source creative tools — including micro-moss for microcontrollers, a quantum face-encoder, quantum brush and quantum photo booth — that let artists run real quantum algorithms without specialist credentials. Sarah Selby sets these experiments in historical and political context, drawing parallels with early computer art, the military-industrial funding of computing, and the role of artists such as Vera Molnár, Frieder Nake, Libby Heaney and David Young in shaping public imagination and technological futures. Finally, Ola Bamgboye introduces Quantum Governance Studios, a participatory quantum voting system that invites audiences to decide the fate of contested heritage objects, treating each vote as a qubit in a collective decision circuit. Together, the speakers argue that quantum art is not merely illustrative: it is a means to make quantum concepts tangible, interrogate their politics and shape how society imagines and adopts quantum technology.

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