The Last Judgement

How would a machine interpret Renaissance artworks? 

Libby Heaney

This exhibit is the artist’s interpretation of Renaissance painter Hieronymus Bosch’s The Last Judgement, updated by the artist with bodies from mostly western art history caught in the whirlwind of techno-capitalism, where invisibility is the disciplining power. Each body has been processed by the OpenPose computer vision algorithm - the visible, acceptable bodies are the ones overlaid with a coloured 'data skeleton'. By making connections to visible and neglected bodies in art history, the piece highlights how cultural and historical biases are now being translated into code, and explores the current capitalist context of emerging technologies, comparing it to religious and enlightenment contexts of canonical artworks.

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.