Quantumtechnics: Printing as a Cross-Media Phenomenon of Observing and Materializing in Shaping Reality

Abstract. While Printing is depicted as a contemporary technological advance-ment, it is, in fact, a historically transformative phenomenon, encapsulating humanity’s ongoing engagement with technology to mediate and stabilise the flux of reality. From the primal mark-making of cave art to the advancements in 2D printing, photographic media, and 3D printing, each technological iteration has reshaped the dynamic interplay among observers, mediation, modes of expres-sion, and the crystallisation of reality. This continuum provides fertile ground for creative exploration and highlights intrinsic tensions inherent in these processes of stabilisation and transformation. This paper introduces quantumtechnics as a pivotal framework that reconceptualises printing as a transhistorical and trans-medial technical act. Grounded in the quantum observer effect—where observa-tion actively shapes and stabilises reality—quantumtechnics position printing as a “collapse phenomenon,” wherein mediation solidifies potentialities into tangible expressions of existence. In this view, printing is not merely a means of reproduc-tion but a dynamic milieu for cognitive and material interplay, weaving human and non-human agencies into the unfolding tapestry of the cosmos.