The Path of Memory, the Space Within: From Synapses to Quantum Physics

Serena Scapagnini is the Yale Quantum Institute’s 4th Artist-in-Residence. Her studies combine late antique and middle age art history with semiotics, aesthetics and art theory to frame research in contemporary art. Her innovative work combining video, painting, and graphic design with creative approaches to installation moves fluidly along the border between the arts and science, taking inspiration from neuroscience, psychology, and physics. For the past decade, she has focused her artistic research on the structure and connections of neurons, working closely with Professor Michael Higley from the Yale School of Medicine.  This project, titled SYNAPSES, is dedicated to exploring the mind. Beginning with fluorescent images that visualize living neurons, Serena creates media works that define an internal landscape, following the flow of neuronal axons and dendrites like the tributaries of a river, connecting through synapses to form the shape and substance of our thoughts. Serena's work has been recognized with the Tjolöholm Art Prize in Goteborg, Sweden; with the First Prize at the Biennale of Contemporary Art in Genova, Italy; with the Mario Moderni Art Award, in Rome Italy, and she is a Junior Fellow  of the World Academy of Arts and Science.  

Recently, Serena's artistic research embraced quantum physics for a year-long residency at the Yale University Quantum Institute. Continuing her work on memory, she is collaborating with quantum researchers on themes of quantum memory, decoherence, and qubit lifetime, processes that are also linked to the lexicon of the human brain!