03/11/2020 Our installation QMoss chosen as one of the Aalto Campus Art winners .
Site published 02/11/2020 during the European Quantum Week 2020 (http://eqw.qt.eu/)
Laura Piispanen is a quantum physics researcher and a doctoral candidate in the departments of both Computer Science and Applied Physics at Aalto University, Finland. Her research focuses on the interplay between games, interactive art and quantum technologies.
Noora Heiskanen is a visual artist studying her masters in the Department of Media at Aalto University in New Media – Game Design and Production. She is experienced in game graphics, visual storytelling and has special interest towards communicating science through the visual.
As a team Laura Piispanen and Noora Heiskanen have been the driving force and the people responsible for the content creation and the design of Quantum Explorations (QuEx) exhibition. Heiskanen acted as the exhibition coordinator, the visual designer and collected the materials and content provided by the collaborators like VTT and IQM. Piispanen’s main role was creating the concept content teaching the basics of quantum physics to the general audience.
The exhibition also showcased quantum physics related games, on few of which Piispanen has been part of creating: The citizen science game prototype QWiz, the card game teaching the player quantum computing called Q|Cards>, ｈ~ａ~ｍ~ｓ~ｔ~ｅ~ｒ~ｗ~ａ~ｖ~ｅ, a game where you try to save a little hamster by controlling a wave whose shape is determined by a numerical simulation of a Bose-Einstein condensate and the interactive light installation Quantum Garden that simulates a quantum mechanical random walker spreading through a lattice structure.
From these Q|Cards> and the Hamsterwave game originate from the game creation event, Quantum Game Jam and have since been further developed. Piispanen was then one of the organizers of the event and Heiskanen as an invited senior quantum game jam developer. Piispanen has since started her PhD on investigating these games and also organizing later Quantum Game Jams.
In addition Piispanen was a part of the project QPlay (2017-2021), a playful initiative to combine quantum mechanics, art, games and education — home of the interactive art piece Quantum Garden, the citizen science game prototype QWiz and QPlayground, a virtual environment displaying playfully the world of quantum phenomena (a webGL-version developed to be playable through the browser is also available).
Heiskanen has been designing small playable Quantum games for Aalto Quantum Games Course 2020, developing on the idea of easily approachable mini games for quantum topics. Her work with games and science visualization is based on her work as an Engineer in biotechnology and Game Designer and Artist for 15 years. She is one of the leading 3D and virtual reality concept artists in Finland with projects such as Perspectives series and working with partners such as Finnish Museum of Music FAME, YLE, The Finnish Media Federation and others. Noora has a broad expertise as a speaker in events. More of her visual artwork can be found here.
Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture ranks 7th on the field of Art and Design and the Aalto School of Science hosts the Centre of Excellence in Quantum Technology, QTF with the leading Quantum Technology know-how at the Centre of Quantum Engineering.
Noora presenting her involvement and enthusiasm in visualizing quantum from the perspective of an artist
Laura presenting one of the themes at a Quantum Game Jam organized as a part of the Internet Festival 2020 (starting at 1:17:46)