Libby Heaney, slimeQrawl, 2023. Three channel video projection, no sound, 14:22 min.
My practice explores the inherently nonbinary and hybrid concepts and temporalities of quantum physics. I combine diverse media such as virtual reality, video games, and moving image with cutting-edge technologies like AI and quantum computing, and traditional media such as watercolor and glass. Together these media create a dreamlike aesthetic, asking philosophical questions about the nature of reality while remaining very human—intimate and embodied.
Quantum-inspired monsters, hybrids, slime, and other fluid forms are recurring motifs, entangling personal narratives and emotional landscapes with the impact of the exterior realm. Spanning the organic, the mechanical, and the human, my practice continuously seeks to expand the possibilities of the individual and the collective through the irrational magic of quantum, while critically queering capitalist uses of technology.
slimeQrawl invites the viewer to explore our quantum future’s impact on human and non-human bodies.
slimeQrawl is a hypnotic, dream-like video suggestive of quantum interspecies entanglement. It combines quantum computing, CGI and filmed footage and delves into the intricate entanglements between various forms of machines, life, matter and the quantum world.
Slime is a reoccurring motif in my work, characterizing the unstable nature of all things and the self. Slime becomes a symbol of potentiality, transformation and the blurred boundaries between the animate and inanimate, between life and death. slimeQrawl therefore invites us to reconsider our understanding of the individual and the potential for new types of interspecies interconnectedness.
I use my self-written quantum video editing technique that leverages the power of IBM’s quantum computer to layer and remix videos following the intricate relations of quantum entanglement, which results in a blurry, non-binary way of seeing the world abundant with new possibilities.
Through this process, the combined videos of slime, human and non-human bodies melt in and out of one another, oozing across three screens, at times conveying impossible hybrid creatures and at others emerging as familiar forms. This technique transcends the boundaries of conventional step-by-step video editing to open up the queer, non-binary, and posthuman possibilities of quantum.
slimeQrawl was commissioned by Shoreditch Arts Club, London. It has been exhibited at Shoreditch Arts Club, London; Quantum Soup, HEK, Basel, Ooze Machines, Phoenix Art Space x Brighton Festival, Brighton and Frist Museum, Nashville. It will appear at Media Majlis, Doha and Palmer Museum of Art, Pennsylvania in 2027.
Editor’s note: slimeQrawl will be available on Art Journal Open for a full calendar year, after which point the video will be replaced by a video still.
Libby Heaney is an award-winning working-class artist who holds a PhD in quantum science. She is the first artist to work with one of IBM’s publicly available quantum computers, beginning in 2019. She has had solo exhibitions in the UK, Europe, and United States, and her work has been shown at major national and international collections and events, including at Tate modern; Max Ernst Museum, Bruehl; Sonar Festival, Barcelona; and ArtScience Museum, Singapore. She is the winner of the Lumen Prize in Immersive Art, Falling Walls Art Science Award, was nominated for the STARTS prize in 2022. In October 2025, Heaney held a solo show at Orlean House Gallery, London, responding to paintings by J. M. W. Turner.