wmc_e6 2018.10.07 | 歧路結節，開合解謎 Hidden Variables | 羅海德 Hector Rodriguez | 27.09 – 15.10.2018, 11:00 – 19:00 daily | Guided tour welcome 導賞歡迎預約。
Artist Rodriguez finds himself mesmerized with moments in life when one does not know how to move on. He found such a moment of being caught in doubts in Swedish director Ingmar Bergman’s Persona (1966), and subsequently turned such several-second long movie segment into a system of infinite hesitation, visualizing uncertainty via random tracking back and forth on a time line, prescribed by computed parameters.
The work Inflections (2010-2012) is about time, order, affectivity, and the face in the cinema. A sequence from Bergman’s Persona depicts the face, in close-up, of a person who finds herself unable to speak and to act. When the “action-image” (which highlights the forward movement of plotted events) is in crisis, as film theorist Gilles Deleuze puts it, pure duration comes to the foreground.
The software rearranges the original sequence on three distinct screens, prolonging a moment of anxious hesitation by repeatedly reversing the order of the frames, as determined by three different equations. The equations are instances of the logistic map, each with a different value of the growth rate parameter. The values are chosen so that the resulting equations behave chaotically. In this case, “pure duration,” presented in humanist terms as a state of perceptual consciousness, is materialized in concrete terms of mathematics.
Inflections is a dynamic time-warping system to explore experiences of duration, simultaneity and expectation. See technical explanation by the artist on Vimeo. “Inflection points” are those instances of very low motion, or, the points when movement comes to a pause.
What visitors see on each of the movie clip was generated by means of the difference equation often known as the Logistic Map:
The program advances the movie forward or backward based on successive outputs of this equation.
For each decision point, the program uses this formula to generate a number. These numbers will always be in the interval between 0 and 1 (not inclusive). Each number drives the clip move forward or backward, based on this twofold rule:
- If the number > 0.5, move forward to the next inflection point.
- Otherwise, move back to the previous inflection point.
The three images in the 3-channel video (see demo here) show how the same clip evolves with different values of r.
r = 3.8
r = 3.85
r = 4.0
**Archive: description of the work Inflections the artist’s work archive.on ..
**前作參考 | An early version of Inflections was shown at the Writing Machine Collective 4th edition (WMC_e4) in 2011 as part of Gestus – Beta.
The general public is welcome to contact us to set up guided tours during the exhibition period.
Contacts: Tobias Tang (Exhibition Producer)
Mobile: 65748872 | Email: writingmachinecollective.e6@gmail.com
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藝術家羅海德往往對生活裡那些不知如何是好的時刻、進腿兩難的狀態感到著迷。作為一個影癡，他在瑞典導演英瑪褒曼的《假面》（1966）裡找到這猶豫狀態的一刻。然後他寫了運算的程式，把「遲疑」物理化，變成一個數量的系統。程式在不住「閱讀」這段只有幾秒鐘長度的片段，索尋那些沒有動靜（運動量低）的點，即「拐點」(inflections points; 這作品的命題 Inflections 的出處），然後用預設的參數去決定向前還是倒讀。猶豫的狀態，忽然變成了隨機又像是有機的、可觀察的狀態。
從電影欣賞、研究的角度看，《Inflections》關於的是電影中的時間、秩序、情感以及一張臉的呈現；這些都是我們至求追情節的習慣規限下所失卻的。藝術家從褒曼《假面》找出一段關於角色怯場得說不出話的特寫選段，當中就是一張臉的特寫。當強調事件的推進的「運動-影像」的陳述不再生效時，時間的純持續就擴大成為觀賞的主體。
藝術家創作的軟件用三條算式把影片原來的片段於三個影框裡重新編排，把這個瞬間的猶豫的狀態的影格前後重複來回展示。算式其實是預先設定的像素物流圖的其中三個實例 ，每條算式各有不同的增長的參數，由此衍生出各種難以預測的變值。從觀眾角度，影片的混沌前行就有點難料了，而這正是我們重新學習如何「看」，專注力的翻新。
***請參考藝術家羅海德作品資料庫。
***預約及查詢：「文字機器創作集」第六輯展覽監製 鄧志韜 | 電話：65748872 或電郵 writingmachinecollective.e6@gmail.com
