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.

 

 

 

Kiedos.ART started from the collaboration between Laura Piispanen and Noora Archer through the creation and the design of the outdoor art installation QMoss. QMoss is the first outdoor quantum art piece in the world and it is part of Aalto University’s collection of public art.

This collaboration of art, design and quantum physics started at the Quantum Explorations (QuEx) exhibition. Archer 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 doctoral research 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).

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.