After the success of Yale’s “Quantum Week” (Spring 2022)—which showcased the artworks of our previous YQI artists in residence such as the art and science museum exhibition “The Quantum Revolution” featuring artwork by Martha W Lewis, and the light show performance and release of the album “Quantum Sound” by Spencer Topel—the Yale Quantum Institute continues its involvement at the intersection of art and science by welcoming digital artist and virtual reality technologist, Stewart Smith, for the academic year 2022–2023.
Stewart has a long history of operating at the intersection of art and science, from creating digital artworks in collaboration with the Center for Art and Media (ZKM) in Germany, to working within Google’s Creative Lab and Data Arts Team, to his current role as Head of Consumer Augmented Reality at Unity Technologies where he’s helping to craft the future of augmented and virtual reality creation.
Although Stewart taught himself to program computers at a young age, he pursued an academic interest in art rather than computer science, receiving his MFA in graphic design from Yale University. Stewart’s artworks have been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, ZKM in Germany, the SFMOMA in San Francisco, and is in the permanent collection of the Fondation Cartier in Paris. Over the past few years he’s taken a deep interest in quantum computing—teaching himself the logic of quantum circuits by building Q.js, an open-source, browser-based quantum circuit composer and circuit simulator. (Try it live here: https://QuantumJavaScript.app)
Earlier this summer, Stewart gave a public talk about his work and practice at YQI titled “For the Hapless Dreamers: Digital Art meets Quantum Simulations” as part of our nontechnical talks series.