the question of memories. Our initial desire was to create sensitive forms around a quantum world that is still little known. This led to the first lively discussions about memory, its cognitive functioning, and the reconstruction of memories.

The suggestion of a parallel between the observation of memories (in the case of voluntary memory processes, when we strive to recall certain memories) and the observation of particles on a quantum scale was confirmed by several points of analogy. Notably, the fact that the form of memories changes with each occur-rence of observation, that memory reconstructs a memory scene from scattered fragments, and that the iteration of observations can allow the memory to be reconstructed with greater fidelity.

Thus, through this research-creation approach, we sought to develop this parallel between the philosophical consequences of the measurement problem and the functioning of our memory. This (artistic) interpretation of a (philosophical) inter-pretation of quantum physics is at the heart of the research-creation approach we have undertaken. Among the great principles of quantum physics and its numer-ous “oddities”, we focused on the measurement problem for two reasons. First, perhaps more than any other problem, it raises particularly pressing questions about the nature of reality and the knowledge one can have of it, questions that immediately inspired us. Second, it allowed us to conceive a space that is both conceptual and sensitive in which to introduce a figurative pictorial approach.

Bringing together painting and quantum physics was a challenge, especially since we chose to engage in a figurative pictorial approach. Indeed, at first glance, paint-ing seems to be the least appropriate medium to account for the scientific world—and even more so for quantum physics, the most verified science of all—as it is among the most imprecise. Yet, this constitutive blur of the painter’s touch seemed to resonate singularly with the indeterminacy of the quantum world and the representational issues it raises, in an effort to get as close as possible to the texture of the world to explore its sensitive side.

This plastic incongruity also seemed particularly relevant to counter a scientific imagination often associated with a technological aesthetic. In the last century, a few rare pictorial approaches have attempted to reconcile painting and quan-tum physics—we can mention the German-American abstract painter Bettina Brendel, who endeavoured to translate some principles of atomic physics, the Chilean artist Roberto Matta, or even Salvador Dalí, who illustrated the theme of the constitution of matter, composed according to him of suspended atoms, with paintings such as Leda Atomica (1949), and his famous photographic portrait by Philippe Halsman, Dalí Atomicus (1948)23,24.

So, how can we give a pictorial form and material to the world of quantum physics and, more particularly, to this general problem of measurement? In response, this research-creation approach quickly materialized through the conception of a complete exhibition path.

Tomography of Memories

At the heart of the device, an immersive walk through original paintings by Caroline Delétoille is proposed. These paintings represent memory fragments of the same scene, chosen for its prototypical character: a family meal scene, gleaned from the photographic archives of the Nicéphore Niépce Museum of Photography in Chalon-sur-Saône, the first photographic collection in France. The paintings would be as many “measurements” performed on the observed system—the memory scene.