The Process: Slimy Worlds & Quantum Listening

The artist Libby Heaney spent many years as a quantum physicist researching the concept of quantum entanglement, the way objects can affect each other even when separated by vast distances, or what Einstein called ‘spooky action at a distance’.  It’s an idea that challenges our assumptions about the physical world and for Libby it offers up fertile ways of rethinking old hierarchies. In this podcast we take up this mystery and dance with it, seeing where metaphors of entanglement can take us. Firstly Libby talks to biologist Susanne Wedlich about slime and how this shape shifting substance can help us get closer to the quantum world. She then sits down with deep listener and dream expert IONE, the partner and lifelong collaborator of Deep listening pioneer Pauline Oliveros. IONE and Libby meditate on how a practice of quantum listening can entangle us with both the physical and the metaphysical world, including a connection beyond death.

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Libby Heaney is a London based artist with a PhD in Quantum Physics, who works across moving image, performance, installation and physical media, usually combining these with advanced technologies such as machine learning, game engines & quantum computing - a new type of computer that processes information on particles following the weird laws of quantum physics. 

Heaney is widely known as the first person to make art with quantum computers. Her artwork Ent-, commissioned by Light Art Space, 2022, has been exhibited across continents and received substantial international press in places like Der Welt, Wallpaper* and Spike Art.  

Before retraining as an artist at Central St. Martins, London, Heaney completed a PhD in Quantum Information Science at the Uninversity 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 Intitute of Physics, UK, Very Early Career Woman Physicist of the year in 2008. 

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The Process
The creative process is inspired by worlds beyond itself.  The Somerset House podcast series 'The Process' brings those worlds together, platforming the big conversations which go on to inspire new work. 

Drawing on our creative community on site and from the exhibition programme, each episode follows one artist as they explore an idea from their practice to see where it ends up.  We hear their journey from the studio on, as they invite other thinkers to discuss an idea that has come out of a work in progress and help shape where it might go next. 

Producer: Alannah Chance
Series Presenter: Laurent John
Theme music: Ka Baird
Additional music: Pauline Oliveros and IONE, Aylu (Mana Records) Carmen Jaci and Irama G