Director's Greeting
The SPIN ART contest started with a question, “How can we share the beauty of quantum with the world?”. Our center explores the quantum world every day. We find it fascinating and believe that non-scientists can feel the same excitement. We reached out to the art community hoping they can ignite this passion by expressing their own interpretations of quantum.
Artists are experts in transforming unseen ideas into visual artwork. With the artists’ magic, the audience can understand previously unknown concepts through their eyes and ears. This is the reason why artists push the frontiers of introducing new philosophies to the world. In this contest, the participants were able to express their understanding of quantum and spin in their voices.
We enjoyed engaging with the art community while hosting the contest. Jinkyung Kim, a QNS student, wrote a beautiful article introducing the quantum spin’s properties in a metaphor of René Magritte’s artwork. She also gave a great talk about it for the contest participants. One of the audience members said that, before the talk, she barely had any knowledge of quantum but now got a new perspective of how to look at the world. She also said that the artistic metaphors gave her clear inspiration. Another QNS student Kyungju Noh, created a great educational comic of Spin introducing the quantum world he lives in. This comic became quite popular on QNS’s social media.
Sunny Kim, QNS’s Outreach Manager, created a bridge between QNS and the art community throughout this contest. Over 250 artists participated with 7 artworks selected by our panel of judges for prizes. Now we are inviting the general public to cross this bridge. We hope that the artworks inspire the public to find the beauty of quantum spin.