TABOO - TRANSGRESSION - TRANSCENDENCE

This proposal explores the concept of transcendence within computational processes, focusing on the emerging potential of quantum computing and its influence in shaping, beyond AI-based technology, an emerging quantum-digital art. Moving away from metaphors like “machine hallucination,” we investigate how quantum computational frameworks, exemplified by Google’s quantum chip Willow and other developments and projects from an increasing number of companies, including NVIDIA, open new avenues for understanding the generative nature of quantum algorithmic systems. This study critically examines the ways in which computational transcendence redefines the boundaries of meaning-making, art, and technological agency. Using Charles Sanders Peirce’s theory of semiotics, we analyze the semiotic pathways through which quantum processes produce generative outcomes that exceed deterministic algorithms. Although Peirce admits that we only have access to the semiotically real (we emphasize that Peirce was not a transcendental philosopher), we must consider the affection of things as things, or at least the first impressions of the senses of things, which would lead us to the domain of the transcendental. Quantum computing, with its principles of superposition and entanglement, challenges conventional binary logic and introduces an inherent openness to multiplicity and unpredictability. Peirce’s conception of Fallibilism could offer us a compass to discuss these processes, providing a unique opportunity to rethink the creation of meaning and enabling a deeper understanding of computational art and algorithmic aesthetics. Peirce wrote the final version of his semiotics at the time quantum mechanics was emerging, and we consider updating, transplanting, and adapting his perspective to a context in which quantum computing has become mainstream. This proposal positions quantum generativity as a paradigm-shifting approach to computation, art, and philosophy. By focusing on transcendence as a key attribute of quantum processes, we aim to illuminate their potential to challenge existing epistemologies, contributing to amplifying technoetic aesthetic explorations and offering profound implications for contemporary art, technology, and human creativity. By contextualizing these creations within the framework of Peircean semiotics, we investigate how quantum generativity transforms not only the production but also the perception and valuation of an emerging quantum-digital art.