arXiv subjects

Ivan C. H. Liu

Publications and source records attributed to Ivan C. H. Liu.

7 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Roadmap to Quantum Aesthetics

Quantum mechanics occupies a central position in contemporary science while remaining largely inaccessible to direct sensory experience. This paper proposes a roadmap to quantum aesthetics that examines how quantum concepts become aesthetic phenomena through artistic mediation rather than direct representation. Two complementary and orthogonal approaches are articulated. The first, a pioneering top-down approach, employs text-prompt-based generative AI to probe quantum aesthetics as a collective cultural construct embedded in large-scale training data. By systematically modulating the linguistic weight of the term "quantum," generative models are used as experimental environments to reveal how quantum imaginaries circulate within contemporary visual culture. The second, a bottom-up approach, derives aesthetic form directly from quantum-mechanical structures through the visualization of quantum-generated data, exemplified here by hydrogen atomic orbitals calculated from the Schrödinger equation. These approaches are framed not as competing methods but as intersecting paths within a navigable field of artistic research. They position quantum aesthetics as an emergent field of artistic research shaped by cultural imagination, computational mediation, and physical law, opening new directions for artistic practice and pedagogy at the intersection of art, data, artificial intelligence and quantum science.

physics.pop-ph↗

arXiv2026

Optimization and Mobile Deployment for Anthropocene Neural Style Transfer

This paper presents AnthropoCam, a mobile-based neural style transfer (NST) system optimized for the visual synthesis of Anthropocene environments. Unlike conventional artistic NST, which prioritizes painterly abstraction, stylizing human-altered landscapes demands a careful balance between amplifying material textures and preserving semantic legibility. Industrial infrastructures, waste accumulations, and modified ecosystems contain dense, repetitive patterns that are visually expressive yet highly susceptible to semantic erosion under aggressive style transfer. To address this challenge, we systematically investigate the impact of NST parameter configurations on the visual translation of Anthropocene textures, including feature layer selection, style and content loss weighting, training stability, and output resolution. Through controlled experiments, we identify an optimal parameter manifold that maximizes stylistic expression while preventing semantic erasure. Our results demonstrate that appropriate combinations of convolutional depth, loss ratios, and resolution scaling enable the faithful transformation of anthropogenic material properties into a coherent visual language. Building on these findings, we implement a low-latency, feed-forward NST pipeline deployed on mobile devices. The system integrates a React Native frontend with a Flask-based GPU backend, achieving high-resolution inference within 3-5 seconds on general mobile hardware. This enables real-time, in-situ visual intervention at the site of image capture, supporting participatory engagement with Anthropocene landscapes. By coupling domain-specific NST optimization with mobile deployment, AnthropoCam reframes neural style transfer as a practical and expressive tool for real-time environmental visualization in the Anthropocene.

cs.HC↗

arXiv2026

Art Practice for Sustainability: A Cognitive-Affective-Systemic Framework

This paper proposes a cognitive-Affective-Systemic (CAS) framework that integrates cognition, emotion, and systemic understanding to cultivate sustainability awareness through art. Drawing from eco-aesthetics, affect theory, complexity science, and posthuman ethics, the framework defines artistic practice as both epistemic and performative--a way of knowing through making and feeling. Central to this is logomotion, an aesthetic mode where comprehension and emotion move together as a unified experience. Two artworks, SPill, visualizing antimicrobial resistance through avalanche dynamics, and Echoes of the Land, modeling anthropogenic seismicity, demonstrate how systemic modeling and sensory immersion transform complex science into embodied ecological understanding. The framework offers a methodological foundation for artists, theorists, and activists to translate awareness into engagement, advancing collective creativity toward sustainable futures.

cs.HC↗

arXiv2026

Revealing Latent Self-Similarity in Cellular Automata via Recursive Gradient Profiling

Cellular automata (CA), originally developed as computational models of natural processes, have become a central subject in the study of complex systems and generative visual forms. Among them, the Ulam-Warburton Cellular Automaton (UWCA) exhibits recursive growth and fractal-like characteristics in its spatial evolution. However, exact self-similar fractal structures are typically observable only at specific generations and remain visually obscured in conventional binary renderings. This study introduces a Recursive Gradient Profile Function (RGPF) that assigns grayscale values to newly activated cells according to their generation index, enabling latent self-similar structures to emerge cumulatively in spatial visualizations. Through this gradient-based mapping, recursive geometric patterns become perceptible across scales, revealing fractal properties that are not apparent in standard representations. We further extend this approach to UWCA variants with alternative neighborhood configurations, demonstrating that these rules also produce distinct yet consistently fractal visual patterns when visualized using recursive gradient profile. Beyond computational analysis, the resulting generative forms resonate with optical and cultural phenomena such as infinity mirrors, video feedback, and mise en abyme in European art history, as well as fractal motifs found in religious architecture. These visual correspondences suggest a broader connection between complexity science, computational visualization, and cultural art and design.

nlin.CG↗

arXiv2025

Echoes of the Land: An Interactive Installation Based on Physical Model of Earthquake

Echoes of the Land is an interactive installation that transforms seismic dynamics into a multisensory experience through a scientifically grounded spring-block model. Simulating earthquake recurrence and self-organized criticality, the work generates real-time sound and light via motion capture and concatenative granular synthesis. Each block acts as an agent, producing emergent audiovisual cascades that visualize the physics of rupture and threshold behavior. This work exemplifies the amalgamation of scientific knowledge and artistic practice, opening new avenues for novel forms of musical instrument and narrative medium, while inviting further investigation into the intersection of emergent complexity, aesthetics and interactivity.

cs.HC↗

arXiv2008

Rydberg Borromean Trimers

A Rydberg and a ground-state atom can form ultralong range diatomic molecules provided the interaction between the ground-state atom and the Rydberg electron is attractive [C. H. Greene, et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 85, 2458 (2000)]. A repulsive interaction does not support bound states. However, as we will show, adding a second ground-state atom, a bound triatomic molecule becomes possible constituting a Borromean Rydberg system.

physics.atom-ph↗

arXiv2007

Polyatomic Molecules Formed with a Rydberg Atom in an Ultracold Environment

We investigate properties of ultralong-range polyatomic molecules formed with a Rb Rydberg atom and several ground-state atoms whose distance from the Rydberg atom is of the order of n^2a_0, where n is the principle quantum number of the Rydberg electron. In particular, we put emphasis on the splitting of the energy levels, and elucidate the nature of the splitting via the construction of symmetry-adapted orbitals.

physics.atom-ph↗