wmc_e6 2018.09.29 | opens 11:00-19:00 daily 每日上午11:00至下午7:00
「藝術、科技、存庫」 “Art, Technology, and the Archive” | Artist’s talk: Saturday, 06 October 2018: guided tour by artist (2:00pm) + lecture (3:00pm)
2018年10月6日藝術家導覽 (下午二時)+ 講座(下午三點)
Keywords: Visual Mathematics | Computational Cinema | Software Art | Future Cinema | Art from Data | Research-Based Practice | Calculus
Hidden Variables is also known as Kinematograph: Forking Paths of Visuality and Technology. Kinematograph literally connects cinema with motion (kinesis) and writing (graph). In this show, the artist takes up well-known movies to analyze the movements and changes within them. He also makes manifest the very process of analysis. In order to do this, he turns the movie clips into structured data sets, subjects them to computations that experiment with mathematical concepts, and then visualizes both the movies themselves and the concepts employed to analyze them.
Visitors to the exhibition will see silent classics, movie clips by Hitchcock, Godard, Ingmar Bergman, as well as local filmmakers, being transfigured into generatively evolving moving images. Whereas mainstream cinema channels the audience’s attention towards story content, the works in this show redirect our interest towards motion, light, camera moment, and everything that lies between frames, processes of constant change and morphing, and to the performance of mathematical computations. A new kind of seeing, or a new mode of attention, results.
Hidden Variables is Héctor Rodríguez’s first solo exhibition in Hong Kong. As a computational media artist with a cinema studies background, Rodríguez draws on mathematical concepts and techniques to reconfigure our understanding of both moving images and of the algorithms used to analyze and process them. The works in this show reflect on cinematic history and aesthetics, on the limits and possibilities of computer technologies, and the relations between the two. Art and technology are no longer viewed as separate systems. Instead, the integration of the two is presented as an urgent task in the age of information.
The exhibition features image-processing systems developed by the artist from 2011 to his most recent experiments. It is organized around two themes – reconfiguring the cinematic archive, and visualizing mathematics — that address the relationship between perceptual experience and computational thinking. The title Hidden Variables emphasizes the use of mathematics to analyze movie clips. In this way, each found image is subject to decomposition and reconstruction.
The history of cinema has accumulated a large archive of works. These works are often available in digital form, which makes them amenable to computational analysis and manipulation. Rodríguez uses algorithmic technologies to study and reprocess this cultural archive, and so to discover alternative ways of experiencing the films of the past.
Rodríguez expresses abstract mathematical concepts in concrete visual terms. Technology here takes on a self-reflexive aspect. The application of algorithms to moving images not only reveals those images in a new light but also calls attention to the technologies themselves.
The underlying motivation for this body of work is Rodriguez’s concern for the cultural impact of information technologies. Using algorithms specifically designed for each artwork, he reshapes the linear timeline and highlights the visual rhythms induced by the changing patterns of brightness and darkness in cinematic art. All this provides a critical perspective on cinematic viewing and asserts the autonomy of computation.
While all artworks have a strong perceptual and physical presence and can be enjoyed without any knowledge of the mathematics that undergirds them, this survey show includes a research/reading room that invites visitors to look beyond the appearance of a work. Users are free to delve deeper into the artist’s processes of research and experimentation. The audio-visual and textual documents made available explain the technological, mathematics and philosophical concepts behind the works. Videos made by the artists also show how preparing the documentation is as important as making the artworks. As well, the show promotes the interaction and mutual integration of technical and artistic knowledge.
關鍵詞:視覺數學 | 計算電影 | 程式藝術 | 未來電影 | 數據藝術 | 以研究為基礎的藝術實踐 | 微積分
展覽結合影像的活動和書寫,一邊分析經典電影畫面,一邊詳盡紀錄實驗過程。藝術家將電影片段結構成資料庫,以各種數學理論運算實驗,於展場同時呈現影像與分析。
希治閣、高達、英瑪.褒曼與各本地導演的經典電影將會轉換成衍生進化中的流動影像,觀賞者需併棄主流電影專注故事及劇本的解讀,著眼於電影動態、光影、鏡頭運用、兩幀之間、改變過程、變型⋯⋯如觀看數學理論運算表演,轉化出新的電影專注觀賞。
《歧路結節,開合解謎》是羅海德在香港首個個人展覽。作為一名深諳電影史和理論的數碼媒體藝術家,羅氏運用數學概念與方法把活動影像及影像處理演算重新配置。展出作品從電腦科技的限制至可能性反映電影的歷史與美學。在資訊世代,藝術與科技不再分野,而是結合為一的表達手法。
展覽展出羅氏自2011年至今的各類影像程式的運算及實驗,從重驗影像庫及視覺數學兩大主題,剖析官能感受及運算思維之間的關係。《歧路結節,開合解謎》強調以數學「解謎」電影,展場中影像不斷被分解再重構。
電影發展下累積了各式各樣的影像庫,而數碼化的影像庫使電影能夠被電腦程式分析及修改。羅氏以程式演算探討影像文化,開發出新的方法重新體驗舊電影。
羅氏亦以具體視覺元素演繹抽象數學概念,影像演算不只為畫面帶來視覺衝擊,亦能夠反映科技自身,把目光帶到電腦科學層面。
羅氏對資訊科技衝擊文化的關注激發起這一系列的創作。每件作品均配上獨特的演算法,重塑電影時間軸的線性邏輯及張顯電影畫面光影變化的視覺節奏,批判思考電影觀賞經驗及電腦運算的自主性。
無數學背景的訪者可以觀賞活動影像的萬千形態,但訪者亦能走進《閱讀室》,認識作品表面下的運算研究。《閱讀室》放滿紀錄研究過程的錄像、文字、圖表,讓觀眾閱讀作品的技術、數學理論及哲學構思,如此論說錄像與作品同等重要,亦只有兩者相互解讀才能讓藝術與科技在展覽中連結整合。