CLASSES

How are invisible biases translated into code?

Libby Heaney

CLASSES is a video essay exploring the entanglements between machine learning classification and social class(ification). The exhibit takes place in a simulated model of a London council estate, where the artist lives. Machine and human voices playfully narrate aspects of her in-depth research into accented speech recognition, natural language processing and public space surveillance, to understand how historical and cultural biases around social class are being translated into code and how this affects people’s material conditions. 

ABOUT THE ARTIST
Libby Heaney's post-disciplinary art practice includes moving image works, performances and participatory & interactive experiences that span quantum computing, virtual reality, AI and installation. Heaney's practice uses affect, humour, surrealism and nonsense to subvert the capitalist appropriation of technology, the endless categoriziations of humans and non-humans alike. Instead, Heaney uses tools like machine learning and quantum computing against their 'proper' use, to undo biases and to forge new expressions of collective identity and belonging with each other and the world. Heaney has exhibited widely in the UK and internationally, including Tate Modern, the V&A, London and Mutek & Sonar Festivals. Heaney is currently resident of the London institution Somerset House, where she is currently working on a major commission with quantum computing for Berlin's Light Art Space.