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Open a larger version of the following image in a popup: Libby Heaney, Cephalopod Alien - quantum deconstruction , 2022
Libby Heaney
Cephalopod Alien - quantum deconstruction , 2022
c-type print on Fuji gloss
30 x 30 cm
11 3/4 x 11 3/4 in
Edition of 10 + 2APs
Copyright The Artist / Fiumano Clase
Photo credit: Tom Gibbs - @tomgibbsartphotography
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'Cephalopod Alien - quantum deconstruction' is a frame from the first animation study Heaney did with quantum computing from 2019, which was probably the first quantum artwork in the world...
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"Cephalopod Alien - quantum deconstruction" is a frame from the first animation study Heaney did with quantum computing from 2019, which was probably the first quantum artwork in the world she has been called a pioneer for it and her work in general. Heaney made the print by manipulating a scan of a watercolour painting with data from the quantum computer and the result is to make the original painting plural, scatting the pixels across the image plane.

"Heaney’s approach continues a long-standing strategy that pits technology “against itself,” creating a carousel of intertwined themes: From classification to capitalism, bias to identity. Her interest in quantum computing exposes the public to complexity through the concepts of plurality — which borrows from entanglement — and non-binarity, which borrows from superposition. Since 2019, she has been exploring ways to work with data from entangled states of qubits, writing code to manipulate images and voxels.

This effort has resulted in pioneering work. Cephalopod Aliens (2019), for example, employed IBM’s cloud-based quantum computing systems to suggest alternatives to the constraints of physical embodiment. To create a resemblance of the wave behavior of quantum physics, Heaney painted on a wet surface, thereby forcing color to interfere with itself. She then scanned the work and fed it to a quantum algorithm that broke its visual unity through pixel entanglement. This freed the painting from its original position and allowed hybrid forms to come to the surface. In quantum computing, the image representation schemes exploit the property of quantum states, such as entanglement, to initiate a parallel reconstruction of the image across a space of greater dimensionality than is possible using classical computation.

For Heaney, technology is a means to expose the myopia that pervades our post-digital age. Her latest endeavor, Ent- (2021-22), is an immersive audiovisual installation and major exhibition that occupies a black cube. Channeling her ambivalence to quantum technology, she engages the emotional side of the experience to critique our endless appetite for solutionism, proposing quantum thinking as a mitigation tool. "
Beth Jochim, "FROM NFTS TO QUANTUM COMPUTING". February 2022, Right Click Save.
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