Ψ FUNZIONI D'ONDA
FUNZIONI D'ONDA
"The wave function that describes quantum processes is a symbol: a symbol of real correspondence between the microcosm and the macrocosm to which we belong".
Wolfgang Ernst Pauli, Nobel Prize in Physics 1945
A collection of avant-garde, magnetic, surprising sculptures instantly catch the eye, this is Akelo's cycle of works called, Funzioni d'onda (Wave Functions). This collection, arousing aesthetic wonder and existential curiosity, is inspired by the study of quantum physics to which the artist he has devoted himself in recent years. Through the collection, he confirms his desire to combine art and science, pursuing and deepening the gnoseological paths of each. This takes place against the backdrop of the everlasting quest, shared by artists, thinkers and scientists of all places and times, for the other dimension. In that dimension lies an intangible substance hidden behind the changing appearance of reality, a revelation of its absolute meaning.
FROM MATHEMATICS TO ART
The dimension explored by Akelo in this collection is that of the infinitely small, composed of subatomic elements measured in quanta which imperceptibly (to our senses) populate every space with their presence. The laws of physics accept that this presence negates even the remotest possibility of a vacuum. The artist yields to the hypnosis caused by the incessant flow of these tiny entities which possess a dual nature, sometimes behaving as particles, sometimes as waves. According to the laws of quantum mechanics, nothing is certain or predictable about their movements. They are governed only by the principles of uncertainty and probability, replacing the far more reassuring laws of Newtonian determinism. The only safe haven for the scientist, the only fixed point in this ocean of uncertainty, is the wave function. Represented by the Greek letter ψ (Psi), it is a mathematical equation capable of providing information about the state of a system of particles/waves and their position and speed at a given time/place. Only thanks to its providential support can the researcher 'capture' some of the infinite vibrations of energy from this mostly invisible microcosm. This is the context in which Akelo works. Attracted by this elusive microcosm interwoven with particles and energy, he is eager to enter its meanderings and grasp its innermost nature. In penetrating this mystery, he too, like the scientist, initiates his own wave functions. His curious, enquiring gaze probes this subatomic universe, capturing some tiny but essential portions of it in a particular space-time. He also creates a wave function, which is obviously not mathematical in nature, but nonetheless strongly emblematic of a profound, supreme and original act of knowledge.
CRYSTALLISING A MOVEMENT
AN ENDLESS NETWORK OF INTERACTIONS
In this undertaking, the artist is devoted not only to revealing and decoding the mysterious reality that exists around us, but also to re-creating it. This is a supremely creative process that does not limit itself to blocking some of the infinite forms, the multiple arrangements of the other dimension, but also to highlighting the different aspects of the infinite relationships between elements, the so-called entanglement of quantum mechanics. These are relationships which, as this discipline once again explains, are functional, indeed essential, to their very existence. It is no coincidence that, even when placed at great distances from each other, these particles continue to transform themselves in unison, as if they could not relinquish the ties with each other. So the artist not only captures the intrinsic movements, the innate dynamism of the reality in front of him, interacting with it and modifying its nature, but also creates works that, in turn, will be able to interact with each other, to influence each other, in an endless pursuit of infinite possibilities. The observer also participates in this network of perennial interactions, having the opportunity to contemplate the work from a new, global, rotating and dynamic perspective, entering into it and becoming a participant in the creative process. A series of dazzling, fluid and mutable works are on display before us, allowing us not simply to perceive the ultimate essence of reality, but to enter inside it, encouraging a sort of full immersion in the pathways of the other dimension, which finally offers itself to our intuition.
ENDLESS PATH
In turning his gaze towards the mass of infinite and invisible units of energy in quantum mechanics, and "capturing" some of them, the artist calls on the complicity of light. In Akelo's evocative works, light filters through the slits in the panels, creating suggestive patterns where space-time is introduced into the void, without beginning or ending. These compositions continuously change in symmetries, drawing rings, reliefs, areas of shadow and chiaroscuro which reveal themselves before dissolving into a reciprocal fundamental relationship. It is no coincidence that Akelo almost always chooses a metallic, glittering, reflective surface. This is capable of emphasising the impelling presence of energy waves, creating voids of meaning, transcendental chasms, and playing with the optical effects that the work's numerous concavities and convexities produce by bouncing light into different shadows in space. All this does not prevent the artist from being fully aware that his cognitive parabola will never end. Like the scientist, he will never be able to obtain a definitive answer to the deepest nature of this microcosm nor be able to separate the human gaze from those present in this fascinating cosmic spectacle. Every glance cast in that universe, every wave function is, in fact, destined to intertwine with those elements already observed and grasped, inevitably modifying their nature. Every glance will also, paradoxically, accentuate the aspects of indeterminacy and probabilism of knowledge. But, despite everything, the work of art will retain a fragment of infinite truth. It will be saved. And it will save humanity.
DRAWINGS, IMAGES AND SUGGESTIONS...
"The most important teaching of quantum physics is that physical phenomena are defined through the question we ask ourselves about them".
John Wheeler - Physicist
THE NATURAL ORDER OF SYMMETRY
"Between the infinitely large and the infinitely small there is only the infinitely repeated."
Paul Dirac, Physicist
"The mathematical sciences particularly exhibit order, symmetry, and limitation; and these are the greatest forms of the beautiful."
Aristotele, philosopher
"At the deepest level, all we find are symmetries and responses to symmetries".
Steven Weinberg, Physicist
"Symmetry consists in the harmonious agreement of the parts of the work itself with each other and in the correspondence between each part individually and the overall configuration on the basis of one part calculated as a model".
Vitruvio, Architect
"Tutti affermano che la bellezza visibile nasce dalla simmetria delle parti, l'una in rapporto all'altra e ciascuna in rapporto all'insieme; dunque la bellezza di tutti gli esseri è la loro simmetria e la loro misura".
Plotino, philosopher
THE CREATIVE BREATH OF ASYMMETRY
"Symmetry means rest and connection, asymmetry means movement and detachment. Order and rules on the one hand, arbitrariness and possibility on the other, here rigidity and constraint, there vivacity, playfulness and freedom...".
Rudolf Arnheim - writer, art historian and psychologist
"True beauty lies in a deliberate, partial rupture of symmetry".
Zen proverb
"There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion".
Francesco Bacone, philosopher
"Beauty also equals imperfection. There is an emphasis on the positive nature of irregularity and imperfection as criteria of beauty. Irregularity and imperfection which, within a perfect and symmetrical system, are the only elements that can be reached through intuition and originality".
Valerio Jalongo / Cern - from "The sense of beauty"
"The universe is asymmetric and I am persuaded that life, as it is known to us, is a direct result of the asymmetry of the universe or of its indirect consequences".
Louis Pasteur, Chemist
WAVES OF ENERGY
"At the level of sub-atomic physics, the fundamental essence of the universe is pure unembodied energy. All matter is characterised by a specific frequency and wavelength, that is, with a certain number of wave cycles per second ... everything, including us, has a wave function."
Ervin Laszlo, Philosopher of Science and Pianist
Gerald Lawrence Schroeder, Physicist and Theologian
"Different observers, moving at different relative speeds to observed events, will order these events according to different time sequences. The main consequence of this discovery is the conclusion that mass is also energy".
Fritjof Capra, Physicist and writer
"All physical objects, including man, have their own vibrational frequency, and hence an energy field, ...the whole universe appears as a dynamic network of inseparable energy configurations."
Fritjof Capra, Physicist and writer
"Modern physics, therefore, represents matter not as passive and inert, but rather in a continuous dance and state of vibration, the rhythmic figures of which are determined by molecular, atomic and nuclear structures. This is also how the Eastern mystics view the material world. They all emphasise that the universe must be grasped in its dynamism, as it moves, vibrates and dances; that nature is not in static but in dynamic equilibrium".
Fritjof Capra, Physicist and writer
"Matter is but an illusion and energy is the primary substance of the universe".
Niels Bohr, fisico
"When there's no energy, there's no colour, no shape, there's no life".
Michelangelo Merisi, known as Caravaggio, Painter
THE ABSOLUTE MEANING OF GEOMETRY
"The universe cannot be read until we have learnt the language and become familiar with the characters in which it is written. It is written in mathematical language, and the letters are triangles, circles and other geometrical figures, without which means it is humanly impossible to comprehend a single word, but just a vain wandering through a dark labyrinth."
Galileo Galilei, Physicist and Astronomer
"There is still a difference between something and nothing, but it is purely geometrical and there is nothing behind the geometry."
Martin Gardner, Mathematician
"Everything that distinguishes today's time from ancient savagery is almost entirely thanks to geometry. In fact, what we owe to physics, physics owes to geometry itself".
Thomas Hobbes, Philosopher
"There is geometry in the humming of the strings, there is music in the spacing of the spheres".
Pitagora, Philosopher
"Where there is matter, there is geometry".
Johannes Kepler, Astronomer and Mathematician
"The knowledge of which geometry aims is the knowledge of the eternal".
Platone, Philosopher
THE SUPREME MYSTERY OF THE VOID
"Like the vacuum described by the Eastern mystics, the 'physical vacuum', as it is called in quantum field theory, is not a state of simple non-being, but contains the potentiality of all the forms of the world of particles. These forms, in turn, are not independent physical entities, but merely transitory manifestations of the vacuum that underlies them."
Fritjof Capra, Physicist and writer
"There is only being, the void does not exist because if it did, it would be, and therefore could not be non-being. Because it is not non-being, it does not exist".
Parmenides, Philosophe
"The 'quantum vacuum' has nothing empty about it because it contains the fullness of all potentiality. From this bottomless depth all beings and the entire universe have emerged. It is represented as a vast ocean of energy and potentiality, without boundaries".
Leonardo Boff, Theologist and writer
"Imagine flying over the ocean in a jet. From that ideal vantage point, the surface looks perfectly smooth and empty. But you know that if you were on a boat, you would see huge waves all around you. That is how a vacuum behaves. Over great distances – that is, the distances we experience as human beings – space appears to us to be completely empty. But if we could analyse it very closely, we would see all the quantum particles coming in and out of nothing."
Heinz Pagels, Physicist
"Form is no different from emptiness, emptiness is no different from form, form is just such emptiness, emptiness is just such form."
Heart Sutra
DOES THE ANSWER TO EVERYTHING LIE IN ENTANGLEMENT ?
"At the atomic level, then, the solid material objects of classical physics dissolve into probability distributions that do not represent probabilities of things, but rather probabilities of interconnections. Quantum mechanics forces us to see the universe not as a collection of separate physical objects, but as a complicated network of relationships between the various parts of a unified whole. This, moreover, is also the kind of experience that Eastern mystics have of the world, and some of them have expressed this experience in words that are almost identical to those used by atomic physicists."
Fritjof Capra, Physicist and writer
"Between two [related] particles moving away from each other in space, there is a form of permanent action-communication. [...] Even if two photons were on two different galaxies, they would still remain a single entity...".
Niels Bohr, Physicist
"What if the answer to the fundamental question of life, the universe and everything is entanglement? For decades, physicists all over the world have been searching for the theory with a capital T, the one that brings together quantum mechanics and gravity, or quantum mechanics and general relativity, where gravity coincides with the geometry of space-time. Well, the connection between the two could be entanglement'.
Mark Van Raamsdonk, Physicist
"We are part of a 'collective memory' to which we all resort. We are unconsciously all connected with everything else and every other...".
Carl Gustav Jung, Psychoanalyst
"Things are united by invisible bonds. You can't pick a flower without upsetting a star".
Galileo Galilei, Scientist and philosopher
Steel, finish with transparent powder coating
H 27,75 - W 19,37 - D 2 inches
Unique
Steel, finish with transparent powder coating, metallic / opalescent
H 23,34 - W 31,49 - D 3,6 inches
Unique
Steel, finish with transparent powder coating
H 18,50 - D 17,32 - W. 14,17 inches
Unique
DATA SHEET
All the works in the Ψ FUNZIONI D'ONDA collection are unique pieces, made in stainless steel.
Each work, in addition to being signed with the artist's monogram "A", is marked with an attribution number (see photo), registered in the artist's archive, from which a complete set of data relating to the work can be found.
The sculptures are enclosed in custom-made wooden boxes (with a plate embossed with the identification number of the work and the artist's logo in stainless steel) and equipped with wooden or plexiglass base supports
