Libby Heaney

Libby Heaney is a British artist and quantum physicist known for her pioneering work on AI and quantum computing. She works on the impact of future technologies and is widely known to be the first artist to use quantum computing as a functioning artistic medium.[1] Her work has been featured internationally, including in the Victoria and Albert Museum, Tate Modern and the Science Gallery.

Libby Heaney
Alma materImperial College London
University of Leeds
Central Saint Martins
Scientific career
InstitutionsUniversity of Oxford
National University of Singapore
Royal College of Art
ThesisEntanglement of non-interacting Bose gases (2008)
Websitelibbyheaney.co.uk

Early life and scientific career

Heaney is from Tamworth, Staffordshire.[2] She studied physics at Imperial College London, graduating in 2005 with first class honours.[3][4] Libby pursued a successful career in quantum physics, completing a PhD thesis on mode entanglement in ultra-cold atomic gases at the University of Leeds,[5] and pursued her own research as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Oxford and at the National University of Singapore. In 2008, Heaney was awarded the Institute of Physics Very Early Career Woman in Physics Award (now Jocelyn Bell Burnell Medal and Prize).[6]

Artistic career

In 2013 Heaney returned to the UK and completed a master's degree at the University of the Arts London. She studied arts and science at Central Saint Martins and graduated in 2015.[2] She then became a lecturer at the Royal College of Art, teaching Information Experience Design.[7] In 2016, she created Lady Chatterley's Tinderbot which presented Tinder conversations between real users and AI bots programmed using Lady Chatterley's Lover. Lady Chatterley's Tinderbot was covered by BBC News, TheJournal.ie and the Irish Examiner and was exhibited internationally.[8][9][10]

In 2017, Heaney was commissionned by Sky Arts and the Barbican Centre to design Britbot, an internet bot built using artificial intelligence and the citizenship book Life in the UK: a guide for new residents.[11] The book, a manual for the citizenship test, has been described by Heaney as being "largely a white male privileged version of British history and culture".[12] The bot spoke to  the public about what it meant to be British and learnt from their responses to become an ever changing, plural version of Britishness.[2] She was awarded an Arts Council England grant to widen participation of the Britbot to social media.[13] Heaney has exhibited Britbot at the Victoria and Albert Museum, at CogX, the Sheffield Documentary Festival the Edinburgh TV festival, and Art Ai in Leicester.[14][15][16][17]

She has been creating with quantum computing since 2019,[18] and has created artworks using quantum computing for Light Art Space (LAS) in Berlin, Somerset House and arebyte in London.[19][20][21] Using quantum code, storytelling, and immersive installations and performances, Libby Heaney's works such as Ent- and slimeqore explore and warn against the double-edged potential of quantum computing and its exploitation by private companies. In 2022, Ent- received the Lumen Prize immersive environment award.

Major works

Ent- and The Evolution of Ent-: QX (2022)

In 2022, Libby Heaney was commissioned by Light Art Space to create Ent-, a 360 immersive installation that revisits Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights through quantum.[22] The work uses quantum computing as both a medium and a paradigm through which to conceive human and non-human relations.

Ent- was exhibited at LAS, Ars Electronica, and arebyte gallery in London.[22][23][24] The work was also modified to fit a full dome projection at the Deutsches Museum in Munich, projected onto a public facade in Seoul, and turned into a playable version for an exhibition at Nahmad Contemporary in New York.[25]

In 2022, Ent- was a winner in the Art Science Category of the Falling Walls prize and received the Lumen Prize immersive environment award.[26][27]

The Evolution of Ent-:QX, first displayed at arebyte gallery in London, builds on Ent- and imagines a fictional quantum computing company (QX) that appropriates, parodies and subverts the language of big tech in order to educate the viewer on current profit-oriented uses of quantum computing as well as propose new ways to think about and use the technology.[24]

Touch is response-ability (2020)

Touch is response-ability is an instagram performance and touch screen installation where participants activate animations by flicking through instagram stories. The performance investigates representations of the female body in art history and through computer vision to see how stereotypes are socially constructed and maintained. Images of the body are passed through a quantum algorithm, and as the users interact with them they progressively become fragmented and dissolve beyond recognition.

The work was originally commissioned by Hervisions at LUX in 2020 and performed on the LUX instagram account. It was also exhibited at Etopia Zaragoza in 2021 and at Art SG with Gazelli Art House in 2023.[28][29]

Lady Chatterley's Tinderbot (2016)

In Lady Chatterley’s Tinderbot, Libby Heaney programmed a bot to engage in conversations on Tinder by using lines from the 1928 novel Lady Chatterley’s Lover, by D.H. Lawrence. The work was first shown as an interactive installation in 2016 at the Dublin Science Gallery, allowing visitors to swipe left or right to navigate through various conversations.

Lady Chatterley’s Tinderbot was also exhibited at Sonar+D in Barcelona (2017), the Telefonica Fundacion in Lima (2017), the Lowry in Salford (2018), RMIT gallery in Melbourne (2021), Microwave Festival in Hong Kong (2022) and was shortlisted for the HEK-Basel Net-based art award in 2018.[30][31][32][33][34]

Selected exhibitions
  • 2023 - Synesthetic Immersion, 0xCollection, Prague[35]
  • 2023 - slimeQrawl, Shoreditch Arts Club, London[36]
  • 2023 - ...and that's only (half) the story, PLUS ONE Gallery, Antwerp[37]
  • 2023–Present Futures Festival, Centre of Contemporary Art, Glasgow[38]
  • 2023 - Realtime: Lilypads: Mediating Exponential Systems, NXT Museum, Amsterdam[39]
  • 2023 - My Rhino is not a Myth, Art Encounters Biennial, Timisoara[40]
  • 2023 - Ent-er the Garden of Forking Paths, Gazelli Art House, London[41]
  • 2023 - Energeia, Etopia, Zaragoza[42]
  • 2022 - Every Kind of Wind: Calder and the 21st Century, Nahmad Contemporary, New York[25]
  • 2022 - remiQXing still, Fiumano Clase, London[43]
  • 2022 - the Evolution of Ent-: QX, arebyte, London[24]
  • 2022 - Ent-, Light Art Space x Schering Stiftung, Berlin[22]
  • 2022 - Among the Machines, Zabludowicz Collection, London[44]
  • 2022 - BioMedia, ZKM, Karlsruhe[45]
  • 2021 - CASCADE, Southbank Centre, London[46]
  • 2021 - Agency is the Ability to Act, Holden Gallery, Manchester[47]
  • 2021 - BIAS, Science Gallery, Dublin [48]
  • 2021 - Ars Electronica, Linz[49]
  • 2021 - AI & Music, S+T+ARTS & Sonar Festival, CCCB, Barcelona[50]
  • 2020 - Real Time Constraints, arebyte, London[51]
  • 2019 - Euro(re)visions, Goethe Institut, London[52]
  • 2019 - Higher Resolutions with Hyphen Labs, Tate Modern, London[53]
  • 2019 - Open Fest with Sky Arts, Barbican, London[54]
  • 2018 - Digital Design Weekend, V&A, London[55]
  • 2018 - FAKE, Science Gallery, Dublin[56]
  • 2017 - Ars Electronica, Linz[57]
  • 2017 - Entangled: Quantum Computer Art, Royal College of Art, London[58]
  • 2017 - Humans Need Not Apply, Science Gallery, Dublin[59]

Awards and honours

Her awards include

  • 2022 - Lumen Prize, BCS Immersive Environment Award (for Ent-)[60]
  • 2022 - Mozilla Foundation Creative Media Award, USA[61]
  • 2022 - nominated for the S+T+ARTS prize[62]
  • 2021 - Adaptation Award, Artquest, London
  • 2021 - British Council Amplify Collaboration Award[63]
  • 2018 - Arts Council England, National Lottery Project Grant[64]
  • 2018 - HeK Basel Net Based Art Award (shortlisted for Tinderbot)[65]

References
  1. "Libby Heaney: Ent- – Schering Stiftung". Retrieved 9 December 2022.
  2. elwyn.co. "Sky Arts Art 50 | 'The Britbot' by Libby Heaney". Sky Arts Art 50. Retrieved 28 December 2018.
  3. "Somerset House Studios: Libby Heaney - Google Arts & Culture". artsandculture.google.com. Google Cultural Institute. Retrieved 28 December 2018.
  4. "Why can't we get physical?". independent.co.uk. The Independent. 18 May 2006. Archived from the original on 14 June 2022. Retrieved 28 December 2018.
  5. Heaney, Libby (2008). Entanglement of non-interacting Bose gases. jisc.ac.uk (PhD thesis). University of Leeds. OCLC 828574910. EThOS uk.bl.ethos.491808.
  6. Anon (2008). "Reaching for blue skies" (PDF). iop.org. Institute of Physics. Retrieved 28 December 2018.
  7. "Dr Libby Heaney". rca.ac.uk. Royal College of Art. Retrieved 28 December 2018.
  8. Youngs, Ian (16 November 2017). "When Lady Chatterley joined Tinder". bbc.com. BBC News. Retrieved 28 December 2018.
  9. deBurca Butler, Jonathan (14 February 2017). "New exhibition addresses the blurring of the lines between humanity and the digital world". irishexaminer.com. Retrieved 28 December 2018.
  10. Murray, Sean (12 February 2017). "Lady Chatterley's Tinderbot: Modern dating at Dublin's Science Gallery". TheJournal.ie. Retrieved 28 December 2018.
  11. "Britbot". britbot.org. Retrieved 28 December 2018.
  12. "LIBBY HEANEY, art and quantum computing | CLOT Magazine". 11 July 2019. Retrieved 9 December 2022.
  13. "About - Britbot". britbot.org. Retrieved 28 December 2018.
  14. "noisy chatterbots". github.io. ArtificiallyIntelligent. Retrieved 28 December 2018.
  15. "'Machine Dreams' at CogX 2018". Luba Elliott. Retrieved 23 January 2023.
  16. elwyn.co. "Sky Arts Art 50 | 'Britbot' by Libby Heaney". Sky Arts Art 50. Retrieved 23 January 2023.
  17. "Phoenix Leicester - Britbot by Libby Heaney at Art AI Festival 2019". Phoenix. Retrieved 23 January 2023.
  18. "Libby Heaney, Quantum Computing Studies (Series), 2019-21". GAZELL.iO. Retrieved 24 January 2023.
  19. Brown, Kate (11 February 2022). "Is It Time to Rethink the Art Exhibition? An Upstart Nonprofit Is Doing Just That With Radical Pop-Up Shows Across Berlin". Artnet News. Retrieved 21 April 2022.
  20. "Amplify 2020: Digital Installations and Film". Somerset House. 23 November 2020. Retrieved 23 January 2023.
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  31. "Performance with Art with Heart at The Lowry – Libby Heaney". Retrieved 23 January 2023.
  32. "Future U". RMIT Gallery. Retrieved 23 January 2023.
  33. "HALF HALF ::: MICROWAVE INTERNATIONAL NEW MEDIA ARTS FESTIVAL 2022 :::". HALF HALF ::: MICROWAVE INTERNATIONAL NEW MEDIA ARTS FESTIVAL 2022. Retrieved 23 January 2023.
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  35. "Synesthetic Immersion". 0xcollection.org. 2023. Retrieved 10 October 2023.
  36. "slimeQrawl – Libby Heaney Autumn Moving Image Commission Launch". Shoreditch Arts Club. 6 September 2023. Retrieved 10 October 2023.
  37. Gallery, PLUS-ONE (2 September 2023). "... And that's only (half) the story". PLUS-ONE Gallery. Retrieved 10 October 2023.
  38. "Present Futures". Present Futures. Retrieved 10 October 2023.
  39. "Realtime". Nxt Museum. Retrieved 10 October 2023.
  40. "Art Encounters Biennial: My Rhino is Not a Myth. art science fictions". timisoara2023.eu. Retrieved 10 October 2023.
  41. "Ent-er the Garden of Forking Paths | 30 March - 13 May 2023". Gazelli Art House. Retrieved 10 October 2023.
  42. "Energeia". Etopia (in Spanish). Retrieved 10 October 2023.
  43. "Libby Heaney : remiQXing still | 16 September - 16 October 2022 - Overview". Fiumano Clase. Retrieved 9 December 2022.
  44. Collection, Zabludowicz. "Libby Heaney: slimeQore | Art Event at Zabludowicz Collection, London Art Gallery". Zabludowicz Collection. Retrieved 9 December 2022.
  45. "BioMedia | 18.12.2021 - 00:00 to 28.08.2022 - 00:00 | ZKM". zkm.de. Retrieved 9 December 2022.
  46. "Nabihah Iqbal x Libby Heaney: Cascade". www.southbankcentre.co.uk. Retrieved 9 December 2022.
  47. "MMU | Holden Gallery | Interruptions: Libby Heaney (03.02.21 - 10.02.21)". www.holdengallery.mmu.ac.uk. Retrieved 9 December 2022.
  48. "BIAS". Science Gallery Dublin. Retrieved 9 December 2022.
  49. "Ent-". Welcome to Planet B (in German). Retrieved 9 December 2022.
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  52. "EURO(RE)VISION". @GI_weltweit. Retrieved 9 December 2022.
  53. "Higher Resolution". www.hyphen-labs.com. Retrieved 9 December 2022.
  54. "Barbican OpenFest: Art 50 | Barbican". www.barbican.org.uk. 23 February 2019. Retrieved 9 December 2022.
  55. Rich, Steve (20 August 2018). "Artificially Intelligent. Digital Design Weekend 2018 • V&A Blog". V&A Blog. Retrieved 9 December 2022.
  56. "Fake". Science Gallery Dublin. Retrieved 9 December 2022.
  57. "School of the Future". A New Digital Deal (in German). Retrieved 9 December 2022.
  58. "Entangled: Art, Science and Quantum Computing (Part 1) • V&A Blog". V&A Blog. 5 June 2017. Retrieved 9 December 2022.
  59. "Humans Need Not Apply". Science Gallery Dublin. Retrieved 9 December 2022.
  60. "BCS Immersive Environment Award Winner". The Lumen Prize. Retrieved 23 November 2022.
  61. "10 Projects Rethinking Data Stewardship: Announcing Mozilla's Latest Creative Media Awards". Mozilla Foundation. 14 March 2022. Retrieved 23 November 2022.
  62. "Ent-". STARTS PRIZE. Retrieved 23 November 2022.
  63. "Announcing: AMPLIFY D.A.I Collaboration Grants | Blog | Creative Economy | British Council". creativeconomy.britishcouncil.org. Retrieved 23 November 2022.
  64. "Project Grants Awards - Arts Council England". artscouncil.org.uk. Arts Council. 8 October 2018. Retrieved 28 December 2018.
  65. HeK. "HeK - net based award 2018". hek.ch. Retrieved 28 December 2018.
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