Venuses (quantum bodies watched by Open Pose algorithm) #57

Libby Heaney’s “Venuses (quantum bodies watched by Open Pose algorithm)” are some of the first artworks generated using quantum algorithms. Here, Heaney uses quantum data as a material basis for pluralizing and entangling the human body in a series of venus poses, some taken from Western art history and others re-performed by the artist. The presence of both types of images highlight how our bodies are shaped by culture as we re-perform the poses we have been culturally exposed to. The initial stills emphasize biases in the way bodies are seen in AI and art history. The subsequent frames in the animation were generated by passing the initial frame through quantum computing systems, which, through entangled pixels, fragments and inverts the image. As the animation progresses, we see the body from alternative, multiple perspectives—boundary-less and form-less, disrupting the biased conceptions of the female nude.