ArtScience interactions at CQT
A look at the creative quantum-inspired projects the Centre has supported
Creative endeavours
At CQT we believe that science, like art, takes creativity and contributes to human culture. Over the years, CQT has collaborated with writers, artists, filmmakers and cultural institutions. Our goals in supporting art-science projects include communication and reflection, engaging our community and reaching new audiences. The timeline below is a look at some of these projects over the years.
Most of the projects are standalone. An exception is Quantum Shorts, a competition for quantum-inspired creative works, running from 2013 to 2025. We differentiate them by colour on the timeline.
2026 September
Artist-in-residence: Carmen de Matos
2025 September
In the Ether–A Festival of Quantum Science and Technology
CQT contributed to In the Ether–A Festival of Quantum Science and Technology, presented by ArtScience Museum in partnership with Ethereum Singapore. The festival consisted of eight installations and activity stations spanning three levels across the Museum. Artefacts from CQT’s experimental labs and video interviews with CQT scientists were included as part of a Quantum Science Fair
2025 February
Quantum Shorts: Encore
In conjunction with the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology (IYQ), Quantum Shorts presented winning films from all editions of the film festival. Quantum Shorts: Encore was designated as an IYQ Global Event for its global reach and impact. The films were screened in Singapore, Canada, Brazil, New Zealand, India and the United Kingdom.
2024 December
Quantum Shorts Vol. 2
CQT ran the Quantum Shorts competitions for creative quantum-inspired films and fiction with international partners since 2012. In December 2024, the second anthology of short stories from the competition was published. This followed the last competition open call in 2023. The first anthology was published in 2019.
2023 October
CQT's José Ignacio Latorre publishes book on Manhattan Project
From long interviews held with Nobel Laureate Roy Glauber (left) in Spain, Singapore and the United States about his time as a young physicist on the Manhattan Project, CQT Director José Ignacio Latorre (right) wrote a book, The Last Voice. He also previously produced a documentary featuring an interview with Roy. They are pictured here during a visit to CQT in 2014.
2023 August
Artists-in-residence: Wong Zi Hao and Grace Tan
Wong Zi Hao and Grace Tan were selected for residencies organised as part of the NUS Public Art Initiative in collaboration with NUS Museum. Each artist spent a few months in 2022 meeting with researchers and visiting CQT labs to explore a field wholly new to them. They concluded their residencies by presenting proposals for public art for CQT, conceptualising artworks that draw from their exposure to cutting-edge quantum science.
2023 March
Not Only Lines
The poetry project “Not Only Lines” celebrated the 30th anniversary of the National University of Singapore (NUS) Centre for the Arts (CFA). 30 poems were showcased at 30 locations around NUS. At CQT, “What it means to be human”, a poem by Singaporean writer and performer Cheyenne Alexandria Phillips was showcased on screen at our lobby.
2022 November
Art/Science Symposium
Lloyd’s Register Foundation, in partnership with ArtScience Museum of Singapore and the Institute for the Public Understanding of Risk at NUS, hosted a free one-day symposium exploring global perspectives on communicating science, data, and complexity through creativity. CQT Director José Ignacio Latorre gave a talk titled “Wonder & Abstraction”.
2021 April
Online events for Quantum Shorts
Like the rest of the world, many of our events shifted online during the COVID pandemic. When we announced the finalists of the 2020 film edition of Quantum Shorts, we held online events featuring conversations between the finalists and shortlisted judges. One conversation featured a cameo by the puppet stars of the shortlisted film, Buddy Interference, together with shortlisting judges Michael Brooks and Dagomir Kaszlikowski.
2019
QUANTUM: The Exhibition
Local exhibits and artwork complemented travelling exhibition from Canada
Local exhibits and artwork complemented travelling exhibition from Canada
QUANTUM: The Exhibition was launched at Science Centre Singapore on 19 August. The world’s first travelling exhibition focussing on quantum science and technology, QUANTUM: The Exhibition was developed by the Institute for Quantum Computing at the University of Waterloo in Canada. The installation in Singapore included brand-new exhibits on local research designed to complement the original exhibition. CQT was a sponsor of the exhibition and contributor to the new exhibits. This included Quantum, an artwork that CQT co-commissioned with ArtScience Museum for the exhibition ‘All Possible Paths: Richard Feynman’s Curious Life’.
SpooQy-1 satellite
Satellite carried quantum device and quotation from a play into orbit
Satellite carried quantum device and quotation from a play into orbit
SpooQy-1, a satellite built at CQT, entered orbit in June carrying both a high-tech quantum device and a quotation from a play written for the NUS Arts Festival. The play The Golden Record 2.0 was inspired by the two Voyager spacecraft launched by NASA in the 1970s. “We are all different nationals, we are entangled together with all the races,” reads the quotation from Mrs Santha Bhaskar, Artistic Director of the NUS Indian Dance group and a recipient of the Singapore Cultural Medallion.
2018
All Possible Paths: Richard Feynman's Curious Life
Exhibition at ArtScience Museum
Exhibition at ArtScience Museum
CQT contributed to the science and art of the exhibition ‘All Possible Paths: Richard Feynman’s Curious Life’. The exhibition was produced and curated by ArtScience Museum, the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) and Nobel Museum. Opened on 20 October 2018, it explored all facets of the Nobel prize-winner’s life, from his deep contributions to physics to his charismatic teaching and notorious pranks. CQT provided scientific input and co-commissioned with ArtScience museum an artwork inspired by the notion of quantum computing. The result was an immersive installation from Malaysian artist Jun Ong called Quantum.
2017
First screenings of Quantum Shorts films
ArtScience Museum was the local screening partner
ArtScience Museum was the local screening partner
In the 2016 film edition of Quantum Shorts, our international scientific partners collaborated with their local venues to hold screenings of the film finalists. In Singapore, the films were screened at the ArtScience Museum in February 2017.
2016
NUS Arts Festival 2016: WONDER
Quantum physics inspired a new Indian dance choreography
Quantum physics inspired a new Indian dance choreography
CQT was a Creative Partner of the NUS Arts Festival 2016: WONDER, presented by NUS Centre For the Arts (CFA). The festival took place in March 2016 and featured more than 30 performances. CQT researchers collaborated with some of the arts groups who performed in the festival, including NUS Indian Dance, NUS Chinese Dance and the Asian Contemporary Ensemble.
Particularly deep was the collaboration with the NUS Indian Dance group through its Resident Choreographer, Santha Bhaskar, a recipient of Singapore’s Cultural Medallion. She developed a new Bharatanatyam work inspired by the behaviour of quantum particles. Bharatanatyam is a form of classical Indian dance.
2014 - 2015
Collaboration with ArtScience Museum
CQT presented Quantum Dot Dot Dot at Singapore’s ArtScience Museum on 19 December 2015 in collaboration with the NUS Science Demonstration Laboratory. The event showcased CQT experiments and creative works of film and fiction inspired by quantum physics. This followed an earlier collaboration with the Museum when CQTian Tan Peng Kian gave a talk about his research on photon bunching at the Museum’s public seminar devoted to ‘Visualizing the Universe’.
Writer-in-residence: Tania de Rozario
Tania worked on the novella, Somewhere Else, Another You
Tania worked on the novella, Somewhere Else, Another You
Tania joined CQT as writer-in-residence from August 2015. She worked on a novella that borrows from quantum physics to inform both its narrative and its structure. Somewhere Else, Another You was published in 2018. A digital experience of the book was created in 2020.
CQT’s Dagomir Kaszlikowski wins film award
Dagomir’s quantum thriller won top prize in contest run by the Foundational Questions Institute
Dagomir’s quantum thriller won top prize in contest run by the Foundational Questions Institute
Dagomir won top prize in a contest for films that feature physics. The “Show me the physics!” video contest was run by the Foundational Questions Institute in the US, an organization that provides philanthropic funding for research on the foundations of physics. Dagomir’s 15-minute quantum thriller “Seeing Without Looking” was selected from over 100 entries to the competition for one of three top prizes worth $10,000. Watch the film below.
Outreach Fellow: Otto Fong
Otto worked on the comic book, The Quantum Bunny
Otto worked on the comic book, The Quantum Bunny
Cartoonist Otto Fong joined CQT as an Outreach Fellow for six months in 2014. His stint led to the launch of The Quantum Bunny, a comic book which features a bunny showing quantum behaviours. It was launched at the Singapore Writers Festival in October 2015.
Writer-in-residence: Eleanor Wong
Eleanor worked on the play, Initial Conditions
Eleanor worked on the play, Initial Conditions
Eleanor was appointed CQT’s writer-in-residence from September to December 2014. She wrote Initial Conditions. Drawing inspiration from ideas and themes in the quantum world to inform and illuminate ordinary life, Initial Conditions is part of a larger meditation on love and relationships in a changing world. The first reading of Initial Conditions took place in March 2015 at Centre 42 theatre.
2012 - 2013
Outreach Fellow: Karol Jalochowski
Karol worked on the documentary project, Reality Lost
Karol worked on the documentary project, Reality Lost
Karol spent a year at CQT starting September 2012 on the documentary project, Reality Lost. The documentary was a single feature-length episode with eight leading researchers talking about quantum theory in locations ranging from dense jungle to hazy roof-tops and from old boats to busy eateries. The project grew out of a short film called “The Mechanics”, which Karol made after a previous visit to CQT in February 2011 while he was a science writer for the Polish newsweekly magazine Polityka.
Artist-in-residence: Grit Ruhland
Grit worked on a "Cabinet of Curiosities"
Grit worked on a "Cabinet of Curiosities"
From 26 March to 20 April 2012, Grit worked at CQT on a “Cabinet of Curiosities”. The concept of a Cabinet of Curiosities dates to the Renaissance era — it is what museums looked like before museums existed, displaying astonishing artefacts from art and science. Grit wanted to reinterpret the idea for a Centre of modern research. She was particularly interested in quantum research, since the science deals with concepts and objects that are mostly invisible.
2012
Quantum Shorts launched
A call for creative works inspired by quantum physics
A call for creative works inspired by quantum physics
In July 2012, CQT launched Quantum Shorts. The first edition was a competition to produce the best short film inspired by quantum physics. Quantum Shorts continued to run till 2023, alternating between open calls for short films and flash fiction
2011
Writer-in-residence: George Musser
George worked on a book
George worked on a book
George, staff editor and writer for Scientific American magazine, used his residency at CQT in part to work on his second book, which will explore the meaning of “space” given the non-locality of quantum mechanics and ideas from quantum gravity.
Artists-in-residence: Linda Sim Solay and Dario Lombardi
Linda and Dario worked on the art installation, Timensions
Linda and Dario worked on the art installation, Timensions
Artists Linda Sim Solay and Dario Lombardi spent their residency at CQT developing an art installation inspired by ideas in physics. Conceived as a large-scale contemporary art installation, Timensions takes inspiration from the many-worlds interpretation of quantum theory and the ideas of parallel universes and many dimensions in string theory.
