Following the workshop Twelve Degrees Below the Horizon, this conversation between theoretical condensed matter physicist Marilu Chiofalo and artist and former Studio Quantum residency fellow Ale de la Puente explores the role of art and science collaborations in and for the quantum era. Focusing on accessibility, creativity, and the importance of the body in shaping understanding, the conversation expands some of the experiences of the workshop and addresses the role of the arts in advancing knowledge—and the shape—of quantum science and technology. 

How might artistic practice help us feel the strange phenomena of quantum entanglement, uncertainty, and superposition? What aesthetic and philosophical questions arise from quantum technologies that may eventually be able to blur the boundaries between observer and system, simulation and lived experience? And, as our understanding of time, matter, and origin depends on the respective cosmologies that situate us as earthen beings, how might artists (re)imagine the universe, when it is both vast and deeply interconnected?