Quantum Dream, a performance installation by Virgile Novarina, Walid Breidi, and LABOFACTORY (Jean-Marc Chomaz and Laurent Karst).

When we sleep, our brain passes through various creative states; we see shapes and colors in the darkness and hear sounds in the silence. There is, therefore, a real gap between the inert appearance of a sleeper and the richness of their inner experience. The Quantum Dream installation offers visitors a sensory and poetic reinterpretation of this paradox. In the dim light, a sleeper equipped with sensors appears to interact with a mysterious object: a circular transparent tank containing a miniature ocean that seems inert—dormant water—but whose internal movements are revealed on the floor through a play of light and shadow. Swirls, currents, waves, and eddies, invisible to the naked eye, appear on the ground, translating the invisible activity of the sleeping brain in real time and revealing the poetic power of the depths of 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 performance installation "Quantum Dream" was developed by the team from 2018 to 2021 at the CNRS Hydrodynamics Laboratory - École Polytechnique, with the support of the Arts & Sciences Chair of École Polytechnique, the École des Arts Décoratifs - PSL, and the Daniel and Nina Carasso Foundation.