wmc_e6 2018.10.03
歧路結節，開合解謎 Hidden Variables: Forking Paths of Visuality and Technology | 羅海德 Hector RODRIGUEZ
27.09.2018 – 15.10.2018 (11:am – 07:00pm)
06.10.2018 guided tour (2>00pm) and talk (3:00pm)
上環文娛中心6樓展覽廳 Exhibition Hall, 6th floor, Sheung Wan Civic Centre
《歧路結節，開合解謎》設計成一個路路通的迷宮，展示一個深諳電影史和理論的學者如何深探數學理念的程式化運算對分析、開發電影的可能性。
Continue reading “到底有幾多作品？10個標題，7組實驗，5個數學理念… How many works are there in this show? 10 titles, 7 rooms, 5 mathematical concepts…”
wmc_e6 2018.10.03 [for immediate release 即時發布 | English version follows after Chinese version]
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《歧路結節，開合解謎》Hidden Variables: Forking Paths of Visuality and Technology
藝術家 Artist: 羅海德 Hector Rodriguez
策展人 Curator: 王鎮海 Wong Chun-hoi
展覽系列策展人WMC_e6 Exhibition Series Curator: 黎肖嫻 Linda Lai
展期 Exhibition Period: 9.26.2018 – 10.15.2018, 11am – 7pm
藝術家講座－《藝術、科技、存庫》Artist’s Talk – Art, Technology, and the Archive
Date：10.6.2018 2pm – 3pm (藝術家導覽 Guided Tour by Artist), 3pm – 4pm (講座 Lecture)
Venue: Exhibition Hall, 6/F, Sheung Wan Civic Centre 上環文娛中心 6 樓展覽廳
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Media Contacts: Tobias Tang (Exhibition Producer)
Mobile: 65748872 | Email: writingmachinecollective.e6@gmail.com
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計算媒體有助於我們重新思考和經驗我們的電影傳統嗎？羅海德 (Hector Rodriguez) 個展《歧路結節，開合解謎》，以各種數學理論運算實驗分析電影影像，拆解光影變幻的視覺美學的背後。
《歧路結節，開合解謎》展出了羅海德2011年起至今這段時期的影像實驗，以各個自行編寫的程式分析經典電影，如亞弗列．希治閣的《 第十七號》（1932）、尚盧．高達的《阿爾發城》（1965）、英瑪．褒曼的《假面》（1966），將電影背後被埋藏的構圖、運鏡、節奏顯現眼前。作為一位深諳電影史和理論的數碼藝術家，羅海德自修數學理論，學習各影像運算技術如「光流」 (optical flow) 、「運動跟蹤」 (motion tracking)、「圖像壓縮」 (image compression) 等的背後原理，再自行編寫演算程式進行數理裏化的電影美學分析。舊電影經過程式重編後，影像被拆解再重構，成為了獨特的衍生性錄像。
作品如《Gestus Redux》利用「運動跟蹤」技術分析路易．費雅德的《猶德士》（1916），播放原片段的同時，以程式抽取電影中相類動態的情節同步播放，放大電影中往往被忽視的微動作，突出演員的舉手投足或景框內的事物的移動，而非故事情節，帶給我們全新不同的觀賞體驗。而首次展出的作品《The Uncertainty Principle》則利用常用於光學字元識別（OCR）的Gabor濾波器分析電影紋理，在王家衛《一代宗師》（2013）的雨中打鬥選段中把人物和背景過濾，只勾取雨線，又用人工智能的「機器學習」 (machine learning) 方法把配樂和現場聲分隔，只留後者。這樣，觀賞《一代宗師》就一下子變成觀賞一個嶄新的錄像創作。
羅海德希望觀眾都能保持耐性欣賞作品，尤其在這速食年代，觀眾很容易因不知如何觀察而失去興趣，缺乏追看下去的動力。但羅海德的影像創作只要留心細看，尋找我們平日較少留意的電影元素，如節奏、光影的對比、正負空間的調度、人物的微動作，就能找到藝術家在該作品所特別「注意」的電影特質，將平日在主流電影中被遺忘的美學帶回熒幕上。
展覽佈置亦異於常見展覽，不設計單一路徑，反而將展覽廳化成迷宮，讓作品展示於展覽廳各個角落。這設計來自羅海德的創作歷程 – 作品之間表面上沒有明顯關聯，但不難發現作品背後原理、表達手法或是創作時序上，都有著多線的聯繫。因此，無論從哪方向開始觀賞，總可觀察得作品的潛在共通點，由作品自身帶領完整遊覽全場。
羅海德提出「打開媒體藝術黑盒」，認為媒體藝術不應只是表面的成像，還應該讓觀眾閱讀作品背後的原理及研究過程。因此展覽除了展示作品外，亦在場館的正中特設《閱讀室》給有興趣深究作品原理的觀眾閱讀作品解釋。藝術家在創作途中不忘詳盡紀錄實驗過程，亦特別為每份作品製作解說短片，以說明當中抽象的數學原理，解釋創作時的研究及理念。此外，《閱讀室》中展出了藝術家的大量參考書籍及文獻，讓觀眾透過參閱藝術家閱讀時的註釋及手稿，把作品連線到創作概念的誕生的種種 。
羅海德亦將於10月6日親身進行藝術家導覽 （下午2時）及講座（下午3時），屆時將向公眾剖析作品群所牽連的更廣泛的媒體藝術和社會文化議題。
藝術家簡介：
羅海德作品曾於台灣、新加坡、紐約、波蘭、德國、西班牙、希臘等地國際展覽展出，曾獲2003年度「香港藝術雙年展」最佳數碼作品獎項，「香港當代藝術獎2012」的優秀藝術家獎及日本文化廳媒體藝術祭評審團推薦作品，2014年獲民政事務局局長頒發對本地文化藝術貢獻的獎狀。他曾任微波國際新媒體藝術節（2005）《玩感之都》（Culture as Play）藝術總監。他現為香港城市大學創意媒體學院的副教授。
Can computational media help us to rethink and re-experience our cinematic heritage? Hector Rodriguez’s solo exhibition, Hidden Variables: Forking Paths of Visuality and Technology, analyses and processes moving images with mathematical concepts, disclosing the hidden aesthetics underneath the visual content.
Hidden Variables features image-processing systems developed by Rodriguez from 2011 to his most recent experiments. The artist analyzes classic films such as Number Seventeen (Alfred Hitchcock, 1932), Alphaville (Jean-Luc Godard, 1965) and Persona (Ingmar Bergman, 1966) processed via custom programmes that reveal the latent qualities of cinema. These works use video analysis and processing techniques to draw attention to such visual properties as composition, camera movement and rhythm.
While mainstream cinema directs the audience’s attention to story content, Rodriguez invites the viewer to focus on motion, time and technology. The video installation Gestus Redux (2018) applies a specially designed motion analysis algorithm to Judex (Louis Feuillade, 1916), to identify sequences with similar movements. A new work, The Uncertainty Principle, uses the Gabor image filters to detect edges in films and analyze their visual composition. Extracting only the rain drops from the opening sequence of The Grandmaster (Wong Kar-wai, 2013), the work re-creates the action scene with a minimalist approach, inviting the audience to discover neglected aspects of the film.
The exhibition is designed with an unusual layout, different from the normal one-way route. The gallery is turned into a labyrinth, with works scattered in every corner. This approach is inspired by the creation process of Rodriguez, whose works are always part of large webs of theoretical, artistic and technical connectivity. The full impact of the show depends on the connections that visitors will establish among the different works. As the visitor proceeds through the show, each work always resonates with surrounding works.
A Research/Reading Room, located at the centre of the exhibition, contains books, essays, notes, drafts, and other audio-visual documents that hint at the research aspects of Rodriguez’s work, including its technological, mathematical and philosophical concepts, as well as the development of his ideas. Viewers are invited to construct their own meaning by exploring those materials.
Rodriguez will conduct an artist’s talk, including both a guided tour and a lecture on 6 October, sharing his process of integrating mathematics and arts and his thoughts about the direction of media art.
About the Artist:
Hector Rodriguez’s computational art has been widely published in international exhibitions in Taiwan, Singapore, Poland, Germany, Spain, Greece and so on. He was awarded the Best Digital Work in the Hong Kong Art Biennale 2003, Achievement Award in the Hong Kong Contemporary Art Award in 2012-13, Jury Selection, Japan Media Art Festival (2012-13), and received the HKSAR Secretary for Home Affairs’ Commendation Scheme 2014 for Outstanding Contribution to the Development of Arts and Culture. He was Artistic Director for “Culture As Play,” Microwave International Media Art Festival 2005. He is Associate Professor at the School of Creative Media, the City University of Hong Kong.
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。
wmc_e6 2018.09.23 [即日發放 immediate release]
Artist Hector Rodriguez introduces his works in Hidden Variables to the press and all interested parties in person before the show’s opening: 3:00-5:00pm, Wednesday, 26 Sep 2018 藝術家羅海德展覽開幕前親身主持傳媒導賞，介紹《歧路結節 開合解謎》，2018年9月26日下午 3時至5時，歡迎傳媒和所有有興趣人士。 | Artist’s talk「藝術、科技、存庫」 “Art, Technology, and the Archive”: 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）
The Writing Machine Collective welcomes press visits to our Press Preview with a guided tour
《文字機器創作集》誠邀 貴報／刊／台派員採訪下述活動，由藝術家主持導賞，詳情如下：
活動 Event：《歧路結節 開合解謎》展覽傳媒導賞 Guided Press Tour for Hidden Variables: forking paths of visuality and technology
日期 Date： 2018年9月26日（星期三）Wednesday, 26 September 2018
時間 Time： 下午3時至5時 3:00-5:00pm
地點 Venue： 上環文娛中心6樓展覽廳 Exhibition Hall, 6/F, Sheung Wan Civic Centre, 345 Queen’s Road Central
藝術家 Artist：羅海德 Hector Rodriguez
策展人 Curator：王鎮海 Wong Chun-hoi
「文字機器創作集」第六輯系列策展人 WMC_e6 exhibition series curator：黎肖嫻 Linda C.H. Lai
《歧路結節 開合解謎》是數碼藝術家羅海德在香港的首個個人展覽，展示了一個深諳電影史和理論的學者如何深探數學理念開發電影可能，將一套套電影經典以電腦程式分析及修改，以數學演算設置出衍生性藝術作品，開發新的方法重新體驗老電影。
羅海德作品曾於台灣、新加坡、紐約、波蘭、德國、西班牙、希臘等地國際展覽展出，曾獲2003年度「香港藝術雙年展」最佳數碼作品獎項，「香港當代藝術獎2012」的優秀藝術家獎及日本文化廳媒體藝術祭評審團推薦作品，他亦曾任微波國際新媒體藝術節(2005)《玩感之都》(“Culture as Play”) 藝術總監。他現時在香港城市大學創意媒體學院任教。
藝術家將於傳媒導賞中親身示範其新作，同時分享更多的創作意念 。歡迎傳媒採訪。
Hidden Variables: Forking Paths of Visuality and Technology 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 analyse 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.
Hector Rodriguez’s computational art has been widely published in international exhibitions in Taiwan, Singapore, Poland, Germany, Spain, Greece and so on. He was awarded the Best Digital Work in the Hong Kong Art Biennale 2003, Achievement Award in the Hong Kong Contemporary Art Award in 2012-13, and Jury Selection, Japan Media Art Festival (2012-13), and received the HKSAR Secretary for Home Affairs’ Commendation Scheme 2014 for Outstanding Contribution to the Development of Arts and Culture. He was Artistic Director for “Culture As Play,” Microwave International Media Art Festival 2005. He is Associate Professor at the School of Creative Media, the City University of Hong Kong.
wmce6 2018.09.13 [immediate release 即日發佈]
展覽 Exhibition
羅海德 Hector Rodriguez
26.09.2018 – 15.10.2018 | 11am – 7pm / Mon – Sun ***opening 26 September 2018 6:30-8:30pm
上環文娛中心6樓展覽廳 Exhibition Hall, 6/F, Sheung Wan Civic Centre
講座 Talk
藝術、科技、存庫 “Art, Technology, and the Archive”
06.10.2018 | 2pm – 4pm 上環文娛中心6樓展覽廳 6/F, Sheung Wan Civic Centre
Guided tour by artist (2:00pm) + lecture (3:00pm) 藝術家導覽 （下午二時）+講座（下午三點）
Can computational media help us to rethink and re-experience our cinematic heritage? Can computer technology dialogue with the cultural past? Hidden Variables showcases the research-creation work of an interdisciplinary artist and scholar with a film studies background who re-invents classical cinema using algorithmic technologies.
This exhibition is a retrospective of Hector Rodriguez’s computational and generative cinema projects from 2011 to his most recent experiments. His art pieces, all based on data extracted from classical films, appear in a variety of forms, from single-channel videos, multiple projections, digital prints, and animations to audio-visual and textual documentations of the processes of research and experimentation.
Many of the works have been completely reconfigured specially for this exhibition, which includes a new intensely colorful version of the artist’s classic work, Gestus: Judex.
The works in the show form rich clusters and multiple connections. Visitors are invited to wander freely and curiously to and fro between works in order to discover unseen relations, or, stop by the research/reading room in order to acquaint themselves with the basics of the artist’s processes of experimentation. The “forking paths” design reactivates the desire of seeing the past anew.
Some of the works aim to visualize mathematical ideas. Rodríguez expresses abstract formal concepts in concrete visual terms. The application of new algorithms to existing moving images not only reveals those images in a new light but also calls attention to the technologies themselves. Technology here takes on a self-reflexive aspect.
One of the main tasks of media art, the artist believes, is to open the black box of technology and discover previously unknown artistic possibilities.
*The artist wants to thank the Research Assistants who have worked closely with him through the years: Philip Kretchmann, Hugo Yeung and Sam Chan.
電算媒體有助於我們重新思考和經驗我們的電影傳統嗎？
展示一個深諳電影史和理論的學者如何深探數學理念的程式化運算對分析、開發電影的可能性。分佈展場的是藝術家2011-2018的作品群，有單窗錄像、多頻投影、數碼平面圖、貌似動畫的活動影像、紀錄實驗過程的錄像文字圖表。 一組一組的設置簇聚，細看，是多重的對話和相互連結。同一個數學定理衍生出來的作品長相外貌體格氣質不盡相同，在另一時段的作品裡又找到不一樣的翻身。訪者因此必須主動好奇的看，在不同的作品中來回遊走去弄出端倪；要不，就從其中一個叫 “閱讀室” 的作品開始，先理解背景因由。像歧路花園的空間設計，活化了看的慾望，對有心者而言，謎底近在咫尺。
*藝術家在此特別感謝過去幾年和他緊密合作的研究助理：Philip Kretchmann、楊鳴謙、陳顯宗。
**Hidden Variables is the second solo in the Writing Machine Collective’s 6th edition. Complete program [exhibitions][show+talks]
**《歧路結節，開合解謎 》為「文字機器創作集」第六輯的個展系列的第二展。第六輯系列全部節目見此。
