Libby Heaney

Libby Heaney is an award winning Artist and quantum physicist, who has held solo exhibitions at venues including arebyte Gallery London and Light Art Space Berlin named by Weltkunst as one of the best exhibitions of March 2022 alongside Louise Bourgeois and Jenny Holzer.

Heaney is considered to be the first artist to use quantum computing as a functioning artist medium and her notable quantum artwork Ent- has won the Lumen Prize and the Falling Walls Art-Science Prize, 2022. Other solo and group exhibitions and performances in 2022 include Calder and the 21st Century, Nahmad Contemporary, NYC; a month long public screening, Gwanghwamun Square, Seoul; Biomedia, ZKM, Karlsruhe; Quantum Hivemind, Serpentine, London; and CASCADE, Southbank Centre, London. Heaney was awarded the 2022 Mozilla Foundation Creative Media Award, has been the recipient of numerous Arts Council England grants and is in major private collections including Zabludowicz Collection, London. She is currently a resident artist of Somerset House Studios, London.

Before retraining as an artist at Central St. Martins, London, Heaney completed a PhD in Quantum Information Science at the University of Leeds and led her own research at the University of Oxford, publishing around 20 papers on the topic of quantum entanglement. She won the HSBC and Institute of Physics, UK, Very Early Career Woman Physicist of the year in 2008.

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Biography

Selected Solo Exhibitions

2024Q is for Climate (?), Gwangju Songjung station media wall, Gwangju (screening - upcoming)

2024 Ooze Machines, Phoenix Art Space with Brighton Festival, Brighton

2024 Quantum Soup, HEK (House of Electronic Arts), Basel

2024 Heartbreak and Magic, Somerset House, London

2023 Ent-er the Garden of Forking Paths, Gazelli Art House, London

2022 remiQXing still, Fiumano Clase, London
2022 The Evolution of Ent-: QX, arebyte Gallery, London
2022 Ent-, Light Art Space x Schering Stiftung, Berlin
2021 Agency is the Ability to Act, Holden Gallery, Manchester (online)
2021 The Whole Earth Chanting, Emmanuel Church Loughborough, with Radar, Loughborough
University’s Contemporary Art Programme
2019 Euro(re)vision, Goethe Institut, London
2017 Quantum Breathing, Non-Space Gallery, Aarhus part of official programming for the 2017
EU Capital of Culture


Selected Group Exhibitions

2023 Lilypads: Mediating Exponential Systems, NXT Museum, Amsterdam

2023 Energeia, Etopia, Zaragoza (commission)

2023 Wild Data, Serpentine Gallery (online exhibition)

2023 CPH:DOX, Copenhagen

2023 Art SG (with Gazelli Art House), Singapore
2023 Xenospace, EPOCH Gallery (online exhibition)
2022 Digitalive part of Roma Europa Festival, Rome (performance)
2022 Every kind of wind, Calder and the 21st century, Nahmad Contemporary, New York City
2022 Public space projection of Ent-, Gwanghwamun Square, Seoul (screenings)
2022 Full Dome Presentation of Ent-, Deutsches Museum, Munich (screenings)
2022 Quantum Hivemind, Serpentine, London (online/game)
2022 slimeQore performance, Among the Machines, Zabludowicz Collection, London
(commission)
2022 Republica Festival, Berlin
2022 The Baroness, Mimosa House, London
2022 House of Mirrors, HMKV, Dortmund
2022 MMMAD Festival, Madrid
2022 BioMedia, ZKM, Karlsruhe
2022 Things will continue to change, Koppel Project, London
2022 One by One, Fiumano Clase, London
2022 CASCADE, Purcell Sessions, Southbank Centre, London (commission)
2021 The Whole Earth Chanting, Keroxen Festival, Santa de Tenerife BIAS, Science Gallery,
Dublin (commission)
2021 Ars Electronica, Linz (online)
2021 Reflections in the Water, Feral File (NFT online exhibition)
2021 AI & Music, S+T+ARTS & Sonar Festival, CCCB, Barcelona

2021 Virtual Wonders, Mutek Festival, Montreal (online exhibition)

2021 OUT OF TOUCH, LUX (with Herversions), London (online, commission)

2021 Mether, Huddersfield, UK (public space presentation)
2021 Higher Resolutions with Hyphen Labs, Tate Late, Tate Modern, London
2021 Top of the Bots, Art Night, London
2021 Artificial Intelligence After House, Science Gallery, Dublin
2021 Her Voice, ICA, London
2019 Kosmopolis Festival, Centre de Cultura Contemporania de Barcelona, Barcelona Good Grief
2019 Gallery Late, Love Unrequited, Somerset House, London
2019 Open Fest with Sky Arts, Barbican, London
2018 Digital Design Weekend, V&A, London
2018 Edinburgh TV Festival with Sky Arts, Edinburgh Cog X AI Festival, London
2018 Sheffield Documentary Festival, Sheffield FAKE, Sience Gallery, Dublin (commission)
2018 humansbeingdigital, The Lowry, Manchester
2017 Somerset House Studios showcase, Telefonica Fundacion, Lima (with the British Council)
2017 Ars Electronica Festival, Linz
2017 Sonar+D, Barcelona (with Somerset House Studios and British Council)
2017 Entangled: Quantum Computer Art, Royal College of Art (with V&A, Bristol University and
Institute of Physics)
2017 Humans Need Not Apply, Science Gallery, Dublin


Selected Residencies


2017-present Somerset House Studios resident, London
2020 British Council Amplify residency at Somerset House, Mutek Montreal and Mutek Buenos
Aires
2020 Deep Play, Art+Tech residency, [ SPACE ], London
2019 Risk Related, Radar Residency, Loughborough University, Loughborough


Awards

2022 Lumen Prize, London
2022 Winner in Art & Science Category of Falling Wall Prize, Berlin
2022 Mozilla Foundation Creative Media Award, USA
2022 S+T+ARTS prize, Nomination
2021 Adaptation Award, Artquest, London
2021 British Council Amplify Collaboration Award
2020 Arts Council England Project Grant (Figures in Limbo)
2019 Arts Council England Project Grant (The Whole Earth Chanting) Arts Council England Project Grant (Top of the Bots)
2018 Arts Council England Project Grant (Britbot) Lumen Prize (long-list)
2018 HeK Basel, Net-based art award (short-list) 2017 Sky Arts, Art 50 Commission
2016 Institute of Physics Public Engagement Grant (in collaboration with University of Bristol
and V&A)

2014 Ideas Tap Innovators Award
2009 EPSRC postdoctoral fellowship at University of Oxford (£250k to lead my own research in
quantum physics)
2008 Institute of Physics and HSBC, Very early career woman physicist of the year


Education


2013-2015 MA Art & Science, Central St. Martins (Distinction)
2005-2008 PhD Theoretical Quantum Information Science, University of Leeds
2001-2005 MSc Physics with German, Imperial College London, (1st Class Honours)

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