We’ve learnt about many scientific theories during our participation in this class, and I find that having us create an artwork about them forces us to understand these specific theories in a way that allows us to see it in our brains and to understand how they can be used in the real world. This was exactly the case with my artwork as it really allowed me to visualize Quantum Theory to a point where I could grasp its important aspects and apply them into a drawing. My artwork displays an eyeball looking down at little electron people as they live though their daily lives. The scientific catch though, is that the electrons being watched by the eye seem to act differently than the ones being ignored.

My artwork is mainly based on the double-slit experiment which was performed by Thomas Young in 1801. The main idea of this experiment was to see how electrons would act when shot towards two thin slits[j1]. The conclusion pulled from the performing of this experiment was baffling as scientists found that electrons acted like waves when shot at the two slits. The electron would come to the slits, pass through both of them and then interfere with itself on the other side. The fact that, what seemed to be as small piece of matter actually acted as a wave. This was a concept that was amazing and so scientists decided to put a camera [j2]pointing towards the two slits to be able to witness this odd reality. What they found however, was that when the electrons were observed, they went back to behaving like particles. The conclusion of this experiment displays the concept of wave-particle duality.

In my artwork, I try to display these slits through two different objects. The first being the highway, represents the two slits that are being observed as the electron people in their cars go through either the left lane or the right lane and act as one entity. The two slits that are not being observed are displayed as the water slide. The little electron people slide down the double-ended slide and separate going through both nozzles at once. When they fall into the water, they make two simultaneous splashes that create two interfering waves. Although I didn’t exactly display the interference pattern of the waves in my artwork, I did choose to make the unobserved slits have something to do with water so that I could use the waves of the ocean as a symbol for how electrons would act like waves when nothing is watching them. And so, my artwork also displays the waves-particle duality of electrons as we can witness the two behaviors through the two different sets of slits at each end of the page.

The creepy eyeball was the first thing I had drawn and was supposed to be the first item in a Dali-inspired drawing, but upon reading the assignment instructions I quickly abandoned my idea as I then tried to incorporate a scientific principle in the artwork. Although it didn’t previously have any symbolism, I now decide that it is a metaphor for human understanding. We always try to know everything and sometimes nature works against us and presents things as they not really are. This experiment proves that our sense of sight can be faulty and encourages us to find other ways of seeing the truth.