diemut

ARNOLFINI PORTRAIT / WIGNER’ S FRIENDS

Arnolfini portrait/mirror scene painted by ‘spooky action’ using undetected entangled photons 3mm x 2mm , projected scaled to the original mirror size of the original painting by Jan van Eyck.

ongoing / 2023

We generate an image with photons which have never touched the object, by using entangled photons. Entanglement is one of the most counter-intuitive quantum states, which was described by Einstein as spooky action at a distance.
To make an image of an object, one usually has to illuminate it with a light beam and use a camera to sense the light that is either scattered or transmitted through that object.
Instead, we create an image with undetected photons by using entangled photons that have not been measured.
When a pair of photons gets entangled they communicate instantly even over extremely large distances.
Any measurement taken on the one particle will always affect and predict the state of the other.
‘Painting’ with entanglement uses undetected photons.
For the art piece, a 3 x 2mm piece of a scaled extract of a painting that introduces the principle of a distribution of image and copy, is used in order to be painted with the method as described above.
The Arnolfini Portrait is a famous picture by the early Dutch painter Jan van Eyck. The painting integrates a small convex mirror in the back of the scenery, mirroring an extract of the image from the back. The painted mirror is generated by using entangled photons.