Libby Heaney

United Kingdom

London

Fiumano Clase

Print

BAT HAND BLOB WING (QUANTUM HYBRID)

POTENTIAL - LIGHT

Bear twin worm tentacle (quantum hybrid)

UNCHARTED

POTENTIAL - DARK

PINK SLIME MOULD HAND (QUANTUM HYBRID)

ENTANGLE!!

Following on from Heaney’s 2022 solo shows with Light Art Space, Berlin and arebyte Gallery, London, Fiumano Clase are pleased to present remiQXing still, a solo presentation of video and physical works exploring the emerging field of quantum computing as both a subject and medium, turning the gallery space into the showroom of Heaney’s fictional quantum computing company QX (Quantum eXperience). 

Quantum computers are an entirely new type of computer being intensely pursued by big tech companies and governments. While only prototype quantum computers exist, when they are fully developed their immense computing power will undoubtedly change the world.  

Heaney was the first artist to work with quantum computing as a functioning of quantum computing in art, through translucent quantum collages, corrupted advertising and unique slime-like glass sculptures. 

The absurdities and artistic questions raised in historical art movements such as Dadaism and Surrealism often inspire her work. Heaney uses humour and nonsense to investigate relationships between humans and non-humans, capitalism and its alternatives, subjectivity, perceptions of reality and our desires and disappointments around new technologies. 

In remiQXing still, Heaney’s works are advertisements, promotional products and merchandise of the fictional company QX, which enables the artist to investigate both the capitalist narratives around quantum computing as well as its currently overlooked radical potentials. 

The future impacts of quantum computing are played out across Heaney’s works in a number of ways. 

Two QX extended advertising videos invite the audience into the world of quantum computing, by referencing text directly from quantum computing companies. As viewers nestle into the arms of a tentacle beanbag, the QX product launch video for their Hieronymus Bosch-inspired quantum immersive experience is overtaken by glitches and various slimy creatures. The slick public face of big tech is here faltering and rather than presenting a façade of hope and endless possibilities the viewer falls into a seemingly dystopian and uncomfortable experience. The promise of beneficial yet strange potentials outside of our usual binary categories are tantalisingly close. Heaney gives us a glimpse of the potentials afforded by quantum computing and entanglements but there are also warnings of possible pitfalls. Have QX appropriated the slimy radical core at quantum computing’s heart? 

A series of watercolour paintings of hybrid creatures are manipulated by Heaney’s self-written quantum code and printed on transparent acrylic. Revealing the invisible inner workings of quantum computers, QX uses these products to promote their tools. Originally present in QX’s Bosch-inspired immersive installation, Ent-, they are quantum interpretations of Bosch’s medieval monsters - at once both celebrations and condemnations of taxonomies outside the norm. Situated between heaven and hell, they could be considered prophecies about the future of quantum computing waiting to be revealed. 

Hard sculpted glass interventions are dotted around the exhibition, placed seemingly incidentally and haphazardly. The slime they represent seeps and oozes around the QX showroom. It has been subverted by outside quantum forces. These sculptures are physical realisations of the slime that invades the QX product launch video, an unsettling reminder of the interconnectedness between the quantum, virtual and material worlds. 

The corrupted QX adverts are quantum manipulations of CGI renders of slime and quantum computers, put together in a process Heaney invented that references the pluralities of quantum physics. Heaney used data from quantum computing to glitch the image, making it partially transparent and plural. Similar to the video works there is a pulsating potential waiting to disrupt big tech’s modes of marketing. Printed on gold coated aluminium, they reference the use of gold - materially inert yet visually enticing - in the manufacture of quantum computers. 

The resulting works invite the viewer into the fictionalised and slightly sinister future that companies such as QX promote. The glitches may be dystopian to big tech, however from an anti-capitalist point of view they could be seen as positive; prompting us the individual to question what is real, what is imagined, and how will the technologies being explored affect our lives? 

About Libby Heaney
Multi-disciplinary British artist Libby Heaney holds a PhD in Quantum Information Science from the University of Leeds and an MA in Art and Science from Central Saint Martins – University of the Arts London. Heaney’s practice incorporates quantum computing, artificial intelligence, computer-generated imagery and virtual reality technology, using each tool to critically explore how and who each technology empowers, or disempowers.

Private and public group institutional shows and collections include the Zabludowicz Collection, Tate Modern, the Victoria and Albert Museum, Somerset House, the Institute of Contemporary Arts, the Barbican, Fundación Telefónica, Lima with the British Council, Sónar+D, Barcelona with the British Council and the Science Gallery, Dublin. 

Most recently she has had solo exhibitions at arebyte Gallery, London (2022), Light Art Space, Berlin (2022), Holden Gallery, Manchester (2022), Emmanuel Church, Loughborough (2021) as part of Radar, Loughborough University’s contemporary
art programme, Goethe Institute, London (2019) and at Non-Space Gallery, Aarhus (2017) as part of their EU Capital of Culture programming. Heaney has performed in several major national and international festivals and institutions including at
Sonar Festival (CCCB), Barcelona (2021) and Southbank Centre, London (2022).
Heaney has received a number of awards and grants, including a Mozilla Foundation Creative Media Award (2022). She is currently a resident at Somerset House Studios, London and has been longlisted for the 2022 Lumen Art Prize.

remiQXing still

remiQXing still

Take 3D Tour