___entangled mattering
Introduction & Outcome
Findings and observations in quantum physics are challenging common perceptions about the material world and often lie in contrast to classical, Newtonian physics. They can seem counterintuitive to our understanding of reality and refuse commonly accepted ideas around materiality, causality and determinacy. These insights invite philosophical, social and ethical reflections on how we understand ourselves and our connection with the world and the universe. 
Research in quantum physics has shown how particles come ‘to matter’ through an act of observation that forces the particle to be ‘conjured’ into existence. The act of measurement, therefore, is of great significance in the continuous materialisation of the world. Before this measurement, particles find themselves in a state of superposition, where they are neither here, nor there, nor here and there, but only exist as a wave of probability.
This project is heavily influenced by Karen Barad and her onto-epistemological ethics of ‘Agential Realism’ and her book ‘Meeting The Universe Halfway’. Barad’s term ‘Space-Time-Mattering’ described her understanding of quantum physics. Neither space, nor time, nor matter can be understood as independent agencies. It is only through their intra-action that all three are realised.
I collected found objects from various locations across London and developed images of these locations on the items. Through the use of analogue film and photo developing techniques, I wanted to show how established ideas of cause and effect, physical boundaries and subject-object dichotomies are being questioned by observations in quantum physics. Our environments are realised through a network of on-going intra-actions between multiple human and non-human bodies. Apparatuses, things and words constitute each other and find themselves in a state of entanglement.
These multiple exposure prints are a metaphor for temporal diffraction and how all possible histories are happening together, co-existing, contributing to the overall pattern of diffraction.
