Du visible à l’invisible

Photometry · PlastiScape · ZooScan · “Art & Quantum” trail of the World Quantum Cannes Festival, 17–18 November 2026.

Organisme planctonique gélatineux bleu aux tentacules translucides, photographié sur fond noir — Gelatinous plankton photographed against a black background: one of the billions of organisms that populate the oceans without being visible to the naked eye.

The concept

Most of reality escapes our gaze. At the quantum scale, matter becomes probability, superposition, relation and transformation. At the scale of living things, billions of microscopic organisms populate the oceans without being perceptible to the naked eye. At the heart of stars, matter becomes plasma and releases its energy through fusion. Artists, scientific imaging and artificial intelligence turn these invisible phenomena into experiences to be lived.

The dialogue between art and quantum science

“Making the invisible visible” is an artistic experience conceived as a succession of complementary proposals. Each one conveys, in its own way, a dimension of the quantum world: indeterminacy, observation, light, interaction, computation and representation. Visitors do not discover the quantum world through equations, but through image, movement, immersion and experience.

Plasma lumineux bleu et or dans un réacteur, observé par photométrie, entouré de lignes de champ magnétique — At the heart of stars: plasma observed through photometry.

Under the sea as in the stars, light becomes language. Through photometry, we do not look at things directly: we listen to what their light tells us about their existence.

The plastisphere

PlastiScape reveals the bacteria, algae and micro-organisms that colonise plastic waste: an ecosystem created, unintentionally, by human activity.

The living invisible

Billions of microscopic organisms populate the oceans without being visible to the naked eye. ZooScan photographs and reveals them, from plankton to the smallest forms of marine life.

Diatomée – phytoplancton observé au microscope, cellules dorées dans leur enveloppe transparente — A diatom seen under the microscope: phytoplankton, invisible and yet the source of a large share of the oxygen we breathe.

Discover the other stages of the trail: Arotin & Serghei – Infinite Time Machine, Studio Above&Below – Quantum Lens, Video works and From bits to qubits.