PARTICIPATING ARTISTS AND THEIR WORKS
Coupe – jalousie room / YoHa – Endless War / Howe & Cayley – The Real Story of Ah-Q / Ip – Rehearsals for muted films #2 / King – map01 / Lai – Vaulting Space / Lau – The Fading Piece / Rodriguez – Theorem 8 / Samson – ne.me.quittes.pas / So – Weather Forecasting / Soon – Hello Zombies / Wong – Autocomic#1
James Coupe – jalousie room (2014)
jalousie （法）/1.嫉妒 / 2. 百葉窗簾
法國「新小說」大師亞蘭．霍格里耶1957年撰寫的小說《嫉妒》裡，女子與一位鄰居的交接一直被觀察著。觀察者是她的丈夫，或一個攝影機而已？不得而知。無論如何，觀眾都成了同謀，一直位處外面望進去。觀眾知道的亦僅止於此，全憑攝影機的描述 — 即使所描述的是甚麽無法確定、非線性，甚至是充滿矛盾的。
裝置是一個包含三個部分的觀察室：一個攝影機巨細無遺的拍攝及分析著展場外的街道及樓宇；另一個攝影機則拍攝一位在展場內的女士；還有一段三人的對話，當中的一個卻長久緘默。卻由一段旁述申聯一起。
作品探討觀眾作為偷窺者的角色，與及他們所佔據的碎裂、猶豫的敘事的視點。作品配合展場內的橫條狀窗戶，令觀眾永遠無法得知全貌。
jalousie / ʒaluzi / nf [1] jealousy; [2] venetian blind
In Alain Robbe-Grillet’s 1957 novel, Jealousy, a woman is observed in her interactions with a neighbor. It is unclear if the observer is her husband or simply a camera, but regardless, the reader is complicit, always on the outside looking in, all we can know is what we are told and even that is uncertain, non-linear and contradictory.
This installation is an observation room with three parts: a camera that meticulously and obsessively analyses the street and buildings outside the gallery; a camera that is looking for a specific woman inside the main gallery; and a conversation between three people, one of whom never speaks. Binding it together is a disembodied mechanical voiceover.
The work is concerned with the role of the viewer as voyeur, and the fractured, confused narrative that such a position provides. It uses the slatted windows of the gallery to ensure that what we see is always the part, and never the whole
YoHa (Graham Harwood and Matsuko Yokokoji) – Endless War
戰事如何被構想，與它的真實運作何干？
2010年7月25日，维基解密發佈了一份名為《阿富汗戰爭日記》的文件，當中包括超過91,000個 (其中15,000份絕密)由士兵及情報人員作的有關2004至2010年間阿富汗戰事的報告。《Endless War》並非一個錄像裝置作品，而是一項持續的、實時式、以多角度分析的數據處理系統。在漫長的戰事中產生出大量數據，將經由軟件程式進行分析，去發現當中的模式，包括事故出現、地理分佈資料、參與人員、時間性及其細節事項等。作品展示大家對戰事的構想，與其實況比對，兩者都看似是沒完沒了的過程，當代列強數理上的想像比照它們實戰上的失敗。
How does the way war is thought relate to how it is fought?
On 25th July 2010, WikiLeaks released a document set called the Afghan War Diary, which includes over 91,000 (15,000 withheld) reports by soldiers and intelligence officers covering the war in Afghanistan from 2004 to 2010. Endless War is not a video installation but a prolonged real-time processing of the data set seen from a series of different analytical points of view. As the war is fought it produces entries in databases that are in turn analyzed by software looking for repeated patterns of events, spatial information, kinds of actors, timings and other factors. Endless War shows how the way war is thought relates to the way it is fought. Both are seen as potentially endless, computational processes. The algorithmic imaginary of contemporary power meshes with the drawn out failure of imperial adventure.
Daniel C. Howe & John Cayley – 阿Q正傳 The Real Story of Ah-Q (2014)
作品以魯迅的革命性作品《阿Q正傳》的英文譯本作藍本，經數學程式分析處理書中的詞彙，選取的字詞是那些在網絡上其他非魯迅著作內出現的。搜尋過程中，「電讀器」將選取的字詞在不同網絡搜尋器內搜索，展示它們當下如何被閱讀。網絡內的延展閱讀，經由廣告、圖像及審查，不斷增加，在程式內依然不經審查地自行校閱。魯迅的原著始終默然不發聲，安靜的給置放在旁邊的讀經台上。
An English translation of The Real Story of Ah-Q is read by an algorithmic process that highlights phrases from Lu Xun’s revolutionary work. The phrases selected are words that others have also written – that is, they have been found on the Internet in other documents not written by or about Lu Xun. As the work progresses, the algorithmic reader sends these phrases to search engines (executed by the iPad), showing how they can be read now, in real time. This networked re-reading, augmented with targeted advertising, images, and even censorship, exists within an algorithmic framework still little-examined in terms of its effects on reading, and, indeed, its control of free inquiry itself. Lu Xun’s original text lies closed, nearby on the lectern.
葉旭耀 Ip Yuk Yiu – Rehearsals for muted films #2 (2014)
《Rehearsals for muted films #2》重構了三齣與香港有關的荷里活電影，包括《生死戀》 (1955)、《蘇絲黃的世界》 (1960)及《龍爭虎鬥》 (1973)。作品猶如一段沈默的旅程，被投影播放著的文字開啟觀眾以全新方式去觀看、聆聽及閱讀普及的電影，同時把三部電影中的對話重新想像為有關文化與身份的寓意性的對話。
Rehearsals for muted films #2 reworks three Hollywood films with stories that were set against Hong Kong. The work for the visitor is a speechless excursions of projected text, which proposes new ways of seeing, listening and reading popular cinema while at the same time re-imagining the dialogue (or the lack of it) as an allegorical conversation about culture and identity. The three films are Love is a Many-Splendored Thing (1955), The World of Suzie Wong (1960) and Enter the Dragon (1973).
Mike King – map01 (2014)
《map01》是透過以數學中的超越函数為基礎所進行的一項電腦視學藝術實驗。
map01 is an experimental visual exploration of procedural interference between transcendental functions.
黎肖嫻 Linda Lai – 翻騰空 Vaulting Space (2014)
441個電影碎片。從1927到2011。上海神怪默片《西廂記》、港產《如來神掌》、港台合製《忠烈圖》、胡金銓的《山中傳奇》、蜀山、龍門…。8秒、5＋3秒，10秒、4＋6、7＋3。彈騰、滾進、跳出、閃入、穿越、跨過，不動聲色。奔跑、攝走、驅散。著地、猛進，無重狀態。呯嘭器具交加，一盤紮實的拌麵條。數碼設定，三個布幕上現在進行式的對位法：迂迴重複的，對沖的，反差的，互相映照的，契合的。看得見的音韻，無盡延伸的律動，武俠電影的斷代板斧。《翻騰空》。請接招。
A 3-screen automated projection runs 441 clips from swordplay films spanning across 1927-2011, exploring visual styles and spatial imagination in Chinese swordplay films and their possible origins. This work adapts the codes of the artist’s former work, Door Games Window Frames: Near Drama (2012, Hong Kong Contemporary Arts Awards), to highlight the counterpoint relations of three image discourses, from the minimalist-constructivist view of the locomotive human body and tools/objects of swordplay to the most basic criterion of locomotion.
劉清華 Jess Lau – 消失之中 The Fading Piece (2014)
《消失之中》為一雙視頻的定格動畫裝置。動畫展示現實中的一枝畫筆其重量完全轉移到畫紙之上（觀塘景觀）的過程。畫和筆不斷地一加一減，同時，它们㩗手建立也消滅了城市。
The Fading Piece is a duo stop-motion animation with sound. The animation on the right shows a diminishing pastel while the one on the left reveals the development of a line-drawing on the Kwun Tong landscape, simultaneously, line by line. Gradually, the skyline of the city is covered by black strokes left by the pastel.
羅海德 Hector Rodriguez – 第八定理 Theorem 8 (2012)
《第八定理》是藝術家親自編寫的實驗性的錄像數據處理軟件，它藉由一套電影作為數據來源，分解另一套電影當中每「格」影像。軟件以「正交分解」的數學方法，把來自高達的《阿爾伐城》及瑪雅‧黛倫《女巫的搖籃》兩齣不同電影的影像重疊。「正交分解」的方法常見於監控用的軟件中。作品旨在凸顯和解構監控技術的程式計算的性質，其背後的哲學強調激進的藝術形式可帶動前瞻性的政治的思考。
Theorem 8 is an experimental video processing software that decomposes every frame in a movie using a fixed database of frames from another movie. By means of a mathematical technique known as orthogonal decomposition, it achieves a superimposition of frames from two different films: Godard’s Alphaville and Witch’s Cradle, directed by Maya Deren. The technique of orthogonal decomposition is often used in surveillance software, and so the work aims to foreground and deconstruct the computational aspects of surveillance technologies. Its underlying philosophy is that radical politics demands radical artistic forms.
Audrey Samson – 請別離開我 ne.me.quittes.pas
《請別離開我》是一個裝置，展示的是一個向電子數據長辭的葬禮。從一些關於數碼死亡的訪問出發，了解人們對離世後自己的電子數據的餘生的想像。獲邀的受訪者選出希望永久刪除的檔案，然後儲存於USB手指之內，給帶到香港城市大學的生物化學實驗室，然後放入高濃度腐蝕性硫酸之中銷毀。儲有數據的電子板被侵蝕，化成灰燼。經侵蝕的「遺骸」將與受訪問資料一併展出。紀錄整個儀式的錄像亦將會在展場中播放。
ne.me.quittes.pas is an installation displaying digital data funerals. It is based on interviews that were conducted with participants on the subject of digital death, and how they imagined the afterlife of their data. The participants selected files they wish to permanently delete. The files were transferred to USB sticks which were then placed in highly corrosive acid at the bio-chemistry lab of the City University of Hong Kong. Once the IC chips containing the data were irremediably corroded, the remnants were collected like ashes. These corroded chips are exhibited in ‘urns’ in juxtaposition with the interview material. A video documentation of the degradation ritual is also displayed.
蘇慧怡 Zoie So – 氣象預測 Weather Forecasting
從古至今世界各國，量度氣象變化、預測天氣，均是涉及民生、經濟、資源分佈的重要課題。遙望天際，探取資訊，大氣以外的無盡宇宙，可量可觀的，盡為考察。縱有幾百萬年的氣象數據，是否足夠我們了解偌大宇宙間的星系引力對地球的氣象影響？萬丈之外，太陽底下，幻化成不同形態動態的水，每天在地球上演活生命的韻律。明天會否下雨？這個問題，真的答不準。
It is miraculous how the sun in our solar system beautifully interplays with water in all its forms on Earth to bring a variety of life-forms and the very conditions necessary for life itself. Here on Earth we humans feel impelled to predict and to prepare. Will it rain tomorrow? Should I bring a jacket along? Looking at the sky, how can we predict the weather? How far and beyond the clouds and past the stratosphere should we probe to obtain relevant climate data? How much can we learn about the past from weather fluctuations? How profound is our knowledge of the correlations of energies and forces in the universe with the climate? Is our technology sophisticated enough to accurately measure the data and really make sense of it? Do we understand the relationship between air pressure on our bodies and the forces that have kept planets, stars, and galaxies swinging for billions upon billions of years? Every humble measurement and prediction itself is a single solid stroke of the sketch of an ever-moving figure. I feel rather small thinking about this, but also feel a certain bliss having the chance to experience this grand world and its vital impulse.
孫詠怡 Winnie Soon – 回轉喪屍 Hello zombies
「我們生活在網絡世界裡並擁有奇特的住址，我們每天與你一起且懂得向你送上誘人的說話。可是你卻稱呼我們為”垃圾”。我們不過閒蕩流連於網絡，你卻要把我們消滅。可是我們仍無處不在。其實，我們只是你們社會和經濟體系嫡傳的孩子，可你偏要逃避我們，漠視我們的存在。我們卻是不死的。我們會編寫，我們會創造。」
–此作品探討垃圾郵件（”喪屍”）的文化現象，這些看似沒有生命的喪屍其實擁有獨特的網絡身份，透過自動化程式，不停生產大量數據，讓人類感到懼怕。其實喪屍是具有生命力的活死生物。此藝術作品利用電腦程式不停地干預網絡運作，嘗試以詩句與喪屍溝通，並無間斷地聆聽網絡回覆。作品希望帶出在資本主義下的網絡文化現象，並探討科技、美學與社會之間的相互關係。
“We are with you everyday, we live in the Internet with peculiar addresses and enticing titbits, but you call us “spam”. We wander around the network, mindlessly, and you wanted to trash us, but we are still everywhere. We are just the children of your economic and social system, but you ignore and avoid us. We are not dead, we write, we create.”
—This artwork examines these nonhuman zombies as a cultural phenomenon that produces quantified data and network identities. Through running the automated living machines, the artwork intervenes the network by writing spam poems to zombies and reading networked replies continuously. This project explores zombies of the living dead that bring forward social, technical, capitalistic and aesthetic relations in everyday lives.
黃照達 Justin Wong – Autocomic#1
Autocomic#1是作者於《明報》連載作品《嘰嘰格格》的重新演譯。故事是根據這六格漫畫所常用的敍事格式與規則，由電腦程式衍生而創作。當中的圖像與文字都取自過往創作《嘰嘰格格》時所建立的資料庫。
Autocomic#1 remakes the artist’s daily six-panel comic strips, Gei Ger Gaak Gaak, published in local newspaper Ming Pao. The stories and the plots are computer-generated based on several simple “rules” and “formulas” commonly found in the comic strip format. All the source materials are extracted from a library of graphics and texts that is built from the artist’s previous works.
