Julian Voss-Andreae
Julian Voss-Andreae's Quantum Man
Julian Voss-Andreae’s Quantum Man stands ten and one half feet tall at the center of the Bravern shopping center in Bellevue, Washington. Quantum Man is one of the artist’s many quantum themed sculptures. Voss-Andreae is an artist turned scientist turned artist once again. He grew up around art, specifically painting, and began his artistic career as a realistic painter. When painting ceased to be interesting in 1993, the artist turned to science and worked for the next seven years to eventually complete Physikdiplom in Europe – essentially a Master’s of Science in Physics. While attending university Voss-Andreae participated in research regarding quantum physics. That research in physics inspired the scientist to return to his artistic roots, moving to Portland, Oregon and completing a BFA in Sculpture at Pacific Northwest College of Art. Julian Voss-Andreae now spends his energy sculpting physical representations of quantum objects and other science related phenomena.
Quantum Man, 2009, is the latest sculpture in the artist’s quantum figure series. Viewed from the front or back, the sculpture appears to be a massive hunk of metal cut to the shape of a man walking forward. But from the side that same man is nearly invisible. The effect comes from the layering of more than 100 sheets of stainless steel, separated by metal rods, layered from front to back, vertically. Voss-Andreae states that his aim, specifically through this sculpture, is to “increase the audience’s capacity to intuit the unfathomable deeper nature of reality.” [1] That reality is quantum mechanics.
Quantum mechanics is a mathematical theory that describes the behavior of microscopic particles.[2] Quantum mechanics allows for the observation of the qualities and possible movements of electrons, hydrogen atoms, and the like. The historic problem with quantum mechanics, and science in general, is that even if there are unknowns, people will always want to visualize how an object might look. As Voss-Andreae points out in his paper Quantum Sculpture: Art Inspired by the Deeper Nature of Reality:
The problem [with representing quantum objects visually] is the very notion that a hydrogen atom, or any quantum “object” for that matter, is an object and has a particular appearance or properties independent of the means used to observe it. Consequently, it seems impossible to assign a “quantum object” any objective existence at all. (…) Using images in science or philosophy to illustrate states of affair is generally a two-edged sword because it is essential that the audience knows the limits of a picture and uses it with discrimination and intelligence. With that caution, I believe that art, having shed the requirement to visually represent reality accurately, is uniquely capable of instilling an intuition for the deeper aspects of reality that are hidden to the naked eye. [3]
For Voss-Andreae, quantum mechanics is a source of inspiration and a springboard rather than a tether. Inspired by a conversation in graduate school, Voss-Andreae set out to create an artistic rendering of a man walking through space-time. The parallel vertical steel plates in Quantum Man are representative of the wave fronts a person might create as they stride forward in time. Each plate is positioned with constant spacing, though the connecting rods are irregularly positioned vertically and horizontally to represent Richard Feynman’s 1948 method of path integral formulation for calculating quantum mechanical probabilities. Voss-Andreae seems to be pointing to a duality between the reality we experience directly and the true nature underneath. Any person at any moment appears to be a static figure – one person now and the same the second later. Quantum mechanics would instead describe the same person as multiple objects over multiple instances of space-time. In essence, a person moves in waves, though those waves are rarely perceived. Quantum Man most excellently illustrates this duality. Voss-Andreae is not trying to be technically accurate in his sculpture; rather he is attempting to show mankind the alternate reality Quantum Mechanics describes.
In addition to quantum mechanics, Voss-Andreae also works with protein molecules and other underlying structures essential for human life. In 2005 Voss-Andreae was commissioned to create a sculpture for the entrance of The Scripps Research Institute in Florida based on the molecular structure of the human antibody. Angel of the West is a 1500-pound sculpture with a twelve-foot circular diameter and a four-foot depth. The piece is made up of 1336 pieces of rectangular stainless steel tubing, assembled into ninety ‘beta strands.’[4] The beta strands were then assembled to mirror Da Vinci’s The Vitruvian Man. Many of Voss-Andreae’s sculptures are created from metal pieces welded together, but Angel of the West required more technology than simple welding equipment.
To execute the piece, Voss-Andreae employed computer technology in the form of a custom program he wrote to envision how the beta strands might fit together. Once the artist found the configuration he was looking for, he wrote another program to calculate the various mitre cuts that would need to be made, then executed those cuts on a laser-cutting machine. Together, the programming took Voss-Andreae six months to write – but without the aid of the computer, the sculpture would be an impossibility. Once the programs were written and the pieces cut to size, nearly two years were required to assemble all 1336 pieces inside the twelve-foot diameter stainless steel ring.
Angel of the West is impressive to behold. The name of the sculpture is derived from Voss-Andreae’s belief that “Human antibodies are like an army of angels”[5] and also openly references the Angel of the North sculpture in England by artist Antony Gormley. The sculpture itself is a tribute to both the research and science of Scripps Research Institute and the importance and significance of the antibody in human life. As with any Voss-Andreae sculpture, the visualization of the science is truer in spirit than in function, but the final piece communicates exactly what it needs to: scientific research and the human antibody are immensely important to life.
[1] http://www.julianvossandreae.com
[3] http://www.julianvossandreae.com
Tags: Angel of the West, Julian Voss-Andreae, Physics, Quantum Man