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When we sleep, our brain goes through different creative states, we see shapes and colours in the dark and we hear sounds in silence. So there is a real gap between the inert appearance of a sleeper and the richness of his or her inner experience. The installation Quantum Dream offers the visitor a sensory and poetic re-reading of this paradox. In the semi-darkness, a sleeper equipped with sensors seems to interact with a mysterious object, a circular transparent basin containing a miniature ocean, seemingly inert in appearance - sleeping water - but whose inner movements are revealed on the floor by a play of light and shadow. Volutes, currents, waves, and whirlpools, invisible to the naked eye, appear on the ground, translating in real time the invisible activity of the sleeping brain.

In this miniature ocean, layers of water of different densities are separated by natural interfaces, which once agitated give rise to phenomena revealed on the ground by an shadowgraphic process. The agitation of the water surface is controlled in real time by variations in the sleeper's brain waves, in particular the delta wave, associated with deep sleep. A succession of ocean states triggered by brain activity then occur, revealing the poetic force of deep sleep.

Born from a collaboration between Virgile Novarina, Walid Breidi, and the LABOFACTORY collective (Jean-Marc Chomaz, Laurent Karst), with the participation of Didier Bouchon, Antoine Garcia, and Giancarlo Rizza, the installation - performance Rêve quantique was conceived by a teamwork from 2018 to 2020 at the CNRS - Ecole Polytechnique Hydrodynamics Laboratory, with the support of the Arts and Sciences Chair of Ecole Polytechnique, ENSAD-PSL and the Daniel and Nina Carasso Foundation.