Meet our Guest with Libby Heaney

Image: Portrait of Libby Heaney. Photo by Andrea Rossetti.

For this edition of Meet our Guest, our Director and Founder, Alana Kushnir spoke to award-winning artist, Dr Libby Heaney. Since 2019 Libby has made art with IBM’s cloud-based quantum computers and is widely known to be the first artist to work with quantum computing as a functioning artistic medium.

She has exhibited at major institutions and museums in the UK and internationally such as Ars Electronica, Linz; Tate Modern & V&A, London as well as solo exhibitions and performances at places such as arebyte Gallery, London; Sonar Festival, Barcelona; Southbank Centre, London and LAS Art Foundation, Berlin. Libby also has a PhD in quantum physics.

As GWA continues its work with artists and cultural institutions at the intersection of art and technology, we jumped at the chance to ask Libby about her experiences in the field.

You’ve had an interesting professional trajectory on the path to becoming a practising artist. Can you tell us a little bit more about your past life as a quantum physicist?

Before going to art school, I completed a MSci in Physics and a PhD in theoretical Quantum Information Science, which is about how to process information using physical systems like atoms and molecules that follow the logic of quantum physics. 

I was concerned with a phenomenon known as quantum entanglement - a type of non-local, non-causal plural correlation, which is stronger than any type of connectivity found in the macroscopic world.

After my PhD, I led my own research at the University of Oxford through an EPSRC postdoctoral fellowship and held a postdoctoral position at the National University of Singapore. I published around twenty papers on topics like quantum information processing, ultra-cold atomic gases and even two papers on whether non-trivial quantum physical effects like quantum entanglement could exist in biological systems like the mitochondria or the olfactory system.

What challenges, if any, have you faced in crossing over to working in the art industry?

I always wanted to go to art school and be an artist (whatever that means) and I made drawings and paintings continuously as a scientist. I studied science at university because I come from a working-class background and was advised I’d make more money ‘studying something serious’. Crossing over to art as a potential career rather than a hobby was tricky as money was always an issue, however, working and living in Singapore meant I could save up to go to art school because the tax rates are lower than in the UK.

Also, scientific thinking versus the practice of being an artist are completely different. So I had to unlearn the rationalist, intellectual way of working and embrace intuitive, somatic and emotional ways of being, which I love. I think I now straddle both the scientific and artistic and the tension between the two can be quite productive.

You use quantum computing as both medium and subject matter in your work. Can you tell us a little more about how and why you do this?

Quantum physics is a scientific theory that describes the microscopic world of atoms and molecules and how they interact and exchange energy. Quantum physics is completely different to Newtonian physics, which describes our everyday, macroscopic world, so quantum physics can appear to be counterintuitive. Unlike Newtonian physics, quantum physics is indeterminate, non-real and non-causal.

For instance, quantum particles can exist in non-binary superpositions of two or more different contradictory states, like spinning up and down, at the same time. Particles can also be entangled across vast distances, so if something measures one particle it instantly affects the other particle, even though the particles are really far apart and there’s no tangible way to transmit a signal.

I’m interested in these “magical” plural possibilities of quantum and how they might help us rethink and feel the critical issues of our time.

The plural properties of quantum are necessary for quantum computers to function. Rather than using quantum computing to solve binary problems at exponential speeds like big tech are currently trying to do, my art reimagines computation as a non-binary process revealing a multitude of possibilities which are equally valid.

Visually you see images where the pixels jump across the space nonlocally and non-casually reinserting the images hauntological content; videos where multiple different clips play at once and fade in and out following quantum wave patterns, and 3D objects in games engines deconstructing to become boundaryless and formless, occupying all possibilities at the same time.

What’s been your experience when encountering legal contracts as part of your artistic practice?

I always insist on having a contract when I’m working and also contracting any freelancers that contribute to my projects as I’ve had issues by not doing this in the past.

Overtime I’ve got used to reading contracts and generally I think I know the key things to look out for. But I still need advice on unusual projects with certain partners, technologies or outcomes.

As an individual artist, there can be power imbalances between myself and the other party to the contract, so it’s really important I ask my lawyer friends or pay someone for advice and then not be pressured to sign quickly before I’m ready.

Your new virtual reality artwork and physical installation, Heartbreak and Magic, is showing at Somerset House in London and presented by VIVE Arts. The installation continues your explorations into the ‘magical’ possibilities of quantum physics. For those of us who can’t be there in person, can you describe the kind of experience you have created for the audience?

It’s a virtual reality (VR) artwork set within a textural, physical installation of large-scale watercolour paintings and videos. You enter a room painted a grey-midnight green colour. The paintings are immersive, extending 4m from the floor to the high ceiling. They remix the process of creating the VR experience and the themes of the work (love, grief, loss, rebirth, quantum physics etc), deepening the authenticity, sensitivity and nuance of the show.

There are three videos of clips from the VR playing on screens in holes in the floor and one playing up high. A haunting ambient soundscape by musician Flora Yin Wong ghosts around the space. A bench sitting on a puddle of carpet is upholstered by artist Rosie Gibbens with printed fabric relating to the VR. Sheer and velvet curtains sit behind two of the paintings and partially separate the VR play-spaces from the rest.  

The VR hand controllers, also covered in printed fabric by Rosie, feel knobbly and when inside the VR the user realises they are holding a bundle of thorns.

The VR is an emotional, dream-like interior occupied by shape-shifting colours and forms. It is a process driven work that comes from addressing the emotions stored in my body from when my sister, Sally, died by suicide in 2019. I find the work, which has now taken on a life of its own, very very beautiful and very very sad - I cry everytime I experience it.

I developed the VR along with the amazing Gabriel Stones, the lead developer on Heartbreak and Magic, as well as Flora, who created the score and the sound design.

Sometimes the VR is interactive and at other times it’s passive - mirroring different stages of grief. I used non-binary data from IBM’s quantum computers to animate parts of the world, so things become plural and appear and disappear based on quantum entanglements, suggesting alternatives beyond the life and death binary.

I really hope Heartbreak and Magic travels to Australia one day so you can see it!

What tip would you give to artists and cultural institutions on what they should be doing now, to better prepare themselves for the quantum future?

I truly believe that quantum computing will have an even bigger impact on the world than AI or the internet, due to its exponential computational power. When exactly this happens is hard to say, as full-scale quantum computers do not exist yet and are challenging to build. But the race is on with billions of dollars investment around the world.

Artists and cultural institutions should become quantum literate to prepare themselves for the quantum future. Next year, 2025, is UNESCO’s year of quantum when events will take place around the world to help people understand this new technology and its attendant science. Artists and organisations could join these events to learn more about our quantum future.

You could also follow the race to build the world’s first full scale quantum computer and the other movers and shakers in this area by following the quantum-niche press. Sites such as Quantum Zeitgeist and Quantum Insider provide up to date quantum news.

To learn more about Libby Heaney’s work, visit https://libbyheaney.co.uk/.