Seeing in the Ocean of Noise
—Esther Lu , May 2020
A confrontation with these football-faced figures, in their colorful vitrines, incites some propelling puzzles. Their compositions are atypical; a wig on top of a weighted cement football sitting on a ceramic vase (actually a replica of a readymade) brings an expressive craft attribute to the gallery setting. These figures are meticulously housed in vitrines, like Ancient Greek busts in a museum, and they appear in different shades when viewed through the multi-colored panels of each cubicle wall. As we enter Heidi Voet’s new solo exhibition ‘06myflipside,’ these arresting colors encourage the audience’s movement around the space, in which layers of vibrantly patterned banners, bearing manifold messages and digits, shine from the background to create a sonorous labyrinth.
At the first glance, we are exposed to a laborious world full of data and different plastic languages—material, patchwork, form, concept and so forth—while also stepping into an uncanny domain where scribbled texts pop up here and there. “Password for the hidden underwater golden cave.” Pondering this sentence suddenly brings a new light to the exhibition and its title.
What if we took ‘06myflipside’ to be the password? Would we be able to perceive another hidden world? What would become visible to our eyes in this underwater golden cave?
Codes start to turn into gestures and the cold, faceless statues begin to make perfect sense. It is a woven landscape depicting our data-driven contemporary reality, where logging in is the major motion barred by the passwords digitally stitched across the banners. Apart from the illegible streams of code, we also enter into some rather private spaces, suggested by personal notes like a shopping list and a calculation formula, or other more open sources such as statements from found T-shirts. The juxtaposition of this circulating data manifests a complex highway system, materializing the networked information connecting various dimensions of space (from mental to virtual) through which our means of perception is to be challenged. As Hito Steyerl argued in her essay addressing contemporary perception, “Seeing is superseded by calculating probabilities. Vision loses importance and is replaced by filtering, decrypting, and pattern recognition.”(1) Among Voet’s displays, an allegorical space is discreetly generated to reveal our sense of being in cohabitation with a penetrating information infrastructure and cybernetic algorithms. We are called to read the patterns of data together with these limbless figures, who suddenly appear to be identity-free avatars ready to submerge themselves into a DeepDream (2).
How are we going to comprehend such a matrix world? What are the messages here? How do we extend our vision and read beyond a human mind? Is our sight and mind already augmented by AI? It feels like Voet’s exhibition is posing a rather urgent concern: is it time for humans to be able to see and read like a machine?
Considering the artist’s approach of appropriating a wide range of materials in response to these questions can perhaps help us explore and imagine further. Throughout Voet’s practice, there is a relentless attention to creating a highly crafted constellation of the present, which is sensitive to various cultural contexts, value systems and the circulation of products. This strategy of inquiry lends a critical view to the construction of self and society. Very often, the artist employs banal objects to signify certain practices or values to be extracted from everyday experiences. For instance, vases have been recurring objects. As a feminine negative space is held by the silhouette of this domestic object, Voet’s early vase series were sculpted with unconventional materials such as cinder block. With a playful twist, the artist exposes gendered and/or transgendered social processes, while further suggesting the transformations of lifeform and materiality (ancient skeletal fragments of marine organisms form limestone, which itself forms concrete). Weaving, an intensive labor often associated with feminine work, is one of the signature treatments in Voet’s oeuvre, employing materials such as plastic bags, watches and wigs. As an exhibition, ‘06myflipside’ shines with a new linguistic turn, with Voet confidently manipulating an abundance of materials and treatments. The relation of form, materiality and objecthood with a diverse and intensive investment of labor, draws a sharp aesthetic difference from the artist’s former singular and minimal approach. A more porous deliberation on the work is permitted by the delicate visual balance and sense of freedom shared within the display.
With this in mind let us return to the underwater golden cave. The nonhierarchical distribution and collage of data—consisting of digitally stitched passwords, hand sewn private messages, mass-produced prints, professional reproduction of patterns and shapes and so on—actually composes what we in the information society call “the ocean of noise,” loudly waiting for our recognition. As we are busy processing, can we even consider passwords, though usually composed of a series of illegible letters, as a new form of literature? These coded words that are arranged to indicate passages, guarding space between the public and the private and providing a sense of terrains and levels of security, are rapidly created everyday around the globe by both humans and algorithms. They immediately create a sense of speed, opening one space after another. They change faces in a jump. How can we then further identify signals and hear music from this ocean? Steyerl suggests a good old method called apophenia, “the perception of patterns within random data.” She also reminds us that “today, the question of separating signal and noise has a fundamental political dimension. Pattern recognition resonates with the wider question of political recognition. Who is recognized on a political level and as what? As a subject? A person? A legitimate category of the population?”(3)
Stretching from this understanding, we may find ourselves on the desolate shore of data, feeling a sheer sensibility to grow an adaptable perception. With seamless composition, Voet’s work again reminds us of our exchangeable identity and what social beings we are, even as we now log in to different operations and systems as eyeless avatars. At the same time we are given the opportunity to see how we can decode machine-like and recognize how our politics are formed in every act of seeing, as well as in the serendipitous encounters of contemporary life. The exhibition also generously concedes that we may log out of it, with all sorts of other possibilities.
(1) Steyerl, Hito. “A Sea of Data: Apophenia and Pattern (Mis-)Recognition,” Duty Free Art. London: Verso, 2017.
(2) “DeepDream is a computer vision program created by Google engineer Alexander Mordvintsev which uses a convolutional neural network to find and enhance patterns in images via algorithmic pareidolia, thus creating a dream-like hallucinogenic appearance in the deliberately over-processed images.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeepDream. Accessed 7 May 2020.
(3) See note (1).
信息噪音大洋中的觀看技術
文｜呂岱如 ，2020年5月
與幾座繽紛展櫃裡的足球臉半身像對望後，令人費解的疑團隨之迸出。該非典型的組合由以下物件構成：一個實為現成物複製品的花瓶，上面放了戴著假髮的沈重水泥足球；而瓶身充滿民藝風格表情的樣式則在畫廊的白立方空間裡特別顯目。它們猶如博物館裡所陳列的古希臘頭像，被小心翼翼地珍藏在展示櫃中。展櫃每邊立面顏色各異，側映其中，半身像隨著觀者步伐的移動，散發出不同色調。於觀者不覺隨色彩在空間裡穿越和運動之際，我們也走入了海蒂．芙歐特的最新個展《06myflipside》，展牆上掛著多幅富有律動圖案的拼接橫幅，上頭佈滿各式訊息與數字，彷彿打造出聲音響亮的迷宮。
在第一印象的接觸裡，我們被暴於一個高密度勞作、且充斥著各種訊息與諸多不同造型語彙的世界，包括了材質、拼布工藝、形式、觀念上的疊置，在進一步留意到四面八方各種塗寫文字閃現之際，又似乎深入某種神秘領地：「password for the hidden under water golden cave 」(通往水底金色洞穴的密碼）。這行文字從背景中躍然而出，瞬時讓展覽和展名有了新的領會空間。
假若我們把「06myflipside」當作密碼，我們是否能夠找到那個翻轉隱藏的世界？在那個水底金色洞穴裡，我們的視覺還能接收到什麼？
密碼開始生出姿態，而冷面無臉頭像也在意義上完美成立。如此細密織起的世界實則描繪了信息導向的當代現實環境，橫幅上數位刺繡的密碼控管著登入這個主要動作，而除了這些難以識別的密碼流以外，我們也被引導到性質各異的空間，像是一些被個人筆記如購物清單、計算算式等暗示下的私密空間，或是為大量二手T恤裁下的標語性文字所揭露的半公開場域等。這些循環在日常生活各種領域的資訊集結體現了一個複雜高速系統，並將信息網絡中所串聯的各種空間向度，不論是心理或是虛擬上的，都具像化地呈現出來，更挑戰了我們在其中的觀看技術。誠如黑特．史德耶爾在其討論當代觀看的文章中所提及，「觀看被運算能力替代了，視力不再重要，取而代之的是過濾、解碼、圖形模式識別。」（1）現場展示物縝密地運算出一個寓言性空間，其中我們與滲透性的資訊基礎建設、控制運算所共存的存在感也被揭開。我們和那些沒有四肢的頭像一起在此開啟閱讀資訊模式，而它們更像是身份來去自由的使用者圖像，早已準備好潛入一場深沈夢境神經網絡的藝術演算法。（2）
我們該如何理解此數據矩陣世界？裡頭真正的信息為何？我們又如何擴延我們的視力並以超越人類心智的方式展開閱讀？亦或，我們所見所識的世界早被人工智慧滲透侵入？這個展覽意圖推展一個迫切的提問：是否已經到了人類應該要學習像機器一樣觀看和閱讀的時候了？
或許關照藝術家對於多種物質挪用的操練，可幫助我們繼續探索和想像藝術家對這些問題的回應與思考。在芙歐特長期的藝術實踐裡，她持續關注如何呈現出當下的存在狀態，以其高度雕琢出來的組織，敏銳地察覺所處的文化脈絡、價值體系與生產邏輯與循環，批判性地回應個體和社會的交互建構。藝術家經常透過使用毫不起眼的物件，在日常經驗裡擷取出通往特定歷史經驗、實踐或價值的符碼系統。舉例來說，花瓶是一個經常出現的元素，作為家飾物件所包覆出來的一種陰性負空間，在芙歐特早期的作品裡卻往往以水泥磚這種非傳統的材料塑成。透過其輕快的轉換，藝術家揭示其被性別化和變性化的社會過程，並進一步透過水泥－萊姆石－遠古海洋有機物骨骼殘骸在億萬年演化歷史中的形變，指涉生命形式與物質的轉化歷程。編織這項常被視為高密度的女性勞動技術也反覆出現在她的作品裡，處理過的素材包括塑膠袋、手錶、假髮等。由本展覽所選用的豐富材料和技法，我們可以觀察到芙歐特在此所透露的一種語言性轉向；多重形式、物質、物件之間的自信操作，自在而高強度的各種勞動投入，較以往偏向單一簡潔語彙的操作方式，劃下了一個嶄新的美學樣態，而展示物件所帶出的精巧視覺平衡和自由感受，也開啟了討論本展的多孔性空間。
讓我們帶著這份認知再度嘗試潛返水底金色洞穴。不分高下，各樣訊息被均值地分派與拼貼，包含了雷射繡字的整齊密碼、充滿手感筆觸的私人訊息、大量生產的圖印、對花瓶圖案與形制的專業複製等，全部匯流成為資訊社會裡所稱的信息噪音大洋，潮雜地等待我們的識別。而當我們忙著展開識別工作時，我們是否能夠將那些意義不清的密碼組串視為一種新的文體？這些在全球各處時時刻刻被人類及演算法所高速生產的加密文字，被安排作為特定通道的指標，守護著公共及私人領域的界線、安全層級。它們激生出一種速度感，打開一個接著一個的空間。它們還有著瞬間變臉的技術。我們又能如何在此大洋裡辨別出信號並聽到樂音呢？史德耶爾給我們提示了一個美好的老方法「圖形模式妄想症」（apophenia），也就是「定義為在隨機訊息中的圖形模式識別」，並且提醒我們「區別信號和噪音的問題在今日有其根本的政治向度。圖形模式識別正好回應了政治識別的廣泛問題。誰在政治層級上被識別出來？又被指認為何？是主體？某人？還是一種合法的人口類別？」（3）
順此拉開理解的向度，我們發現自己正站在荒涼的訊息海岸邊上，懷有絕對的感性且想要擁有一種更為適性、進階版的更新知覺。芙歐特的作品以其流暢的組構再度提示人類的社會化潛能和可替換性身份，我們或許也能像那些無眼的的使用者圖像，隨時登入不同的運作和系統，見識我們自身如何能夠像機器一樣解碼，並認識到我們的政治正在被每個觀看的動作、以及當代生活中的隨機相遇所形塑。展覽同時也大方地建議我們可以隨時登出到更多的可能性裡。
(1) Steyerl, Hito. “A Sea of Data: Apophenia and Pattern (Mis-)Recognition,” Duty Free Art. London: Verso, 2017.
(2) 此處的雙關語 DeepDream 是谷歌工程師 Alexander Mordvintsev 利用網絡神經運算以空想性錯視的演算法，在影像裡找到和強化圖形，在過度操作的圖像上創造出夢境般的幻象。https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeepDream. Accessed 7 May 2020.
(3) 同註 (1)。
—Esther Lu , May 2020
A confrontation with these football-faced figures, in their colorful vitrines, incites some propelling puzzles. Their compositions are atypical; a wig on top of a weighted cement football sitting on a ceramic vase (actually a replica of a readymade) brings an expressive craft attribute to the gallery setting. These figures are meticulously housed in vitrines, like Ancient Greek busts in a museum, and they appear in different shades when viewed through the multi-colored panels of each cubicle wall. As we enter Heidi Voet’s new solo exhibition ‘06myflipside,’ these arresting colors encourage the audience’s movement around the space, in which layers of vibrantly patterned banners, bearing manifold messages and digits, shine from the background to create a sonorous labyrinth.
At the first glance, we are exposed to a laborious world full of data and different plastic languages—material, patchwork, form, concept and so forth—while also stepping into an uncanny domain where scribbled texts pop up here and there. “Password for the hidden underwater golden cave.” Pondering this sentence suddenly brings a new light to the exhibition and its title.
What if we took ‘06myflipside’ to be the password? Would we be able to perceive another hidden world? What would become visible to our eyes in this underwater golden cave?
Codes start to turn into gestures and the cold, faceless statues begin to make perfect sense. It is a woven landscape depicting our data-driven contemporary reality, where logging in is the major motion barred by the passwords digitally stitched across the banners. Apart from the illegible streams of code, we also enter into some rather private spaces, suggested by personal notes like a shopping list and a calculation formula, or other more open sources such as statements from found T-shirts. The juxtaposition of this circulating data manifests a complex highway system, materializing the networked information connecting various dimensions of space (from mental to virtual) through which our means of perception is to be challenged. As Hito Steyerl argued in her essay addressing contemporary perception, “Seeing is superseded by calculating probabilities. Vision loses importance and is replaced by filtering, decrypting, and pattern recognition.”(1) Among Voet’s displays, an allegorical space is discreetly generated to reveal our sense of being in cohabitation with a penetrating information infrastructure and cybernetic algorithms. We are called to read the patterns of data together with these limbless figures, who suddenly appear to be identity-free avatars ready to submerge themselves into a DeepDream (2).
How are we going to comprehend such a matrix world? What are the messages here? How do we extend our vision and read beyond a human mind? Is our sight and mind already augmented by AI? It feels like Voet’s exhibition is posing a rather urgent concern: is it time for humans to be able to see and read like a machine?
Considering the artist’s approach of appropriating a wide range of materials in response to these questions can perhaps help us explore and imagine further. Throughout Voet’s practice, there is a relentless attention to creating a highly crafted constellation of the present, which is sensitive to various cultural contexts, value systems and the circulation of products. This strategy of inquiry lends a critical view to the construction of self and society. Very often, the artist employs banal objects to signify certain practices or values to be extracted from everyday experiences. For instance, vases have been recurring objects. As a feminine negative space is held by the silhouette of this domestic object, Voet’s early vase series were sculpted with unconventional materials such as cinder block. With a playful twist, the artist exposes gendered and/or transgendered social processes, while further suggesting the transformations of lifeform and materiality (ancient skeletal fragments of marine organisms form limestone, which itself forms concrete). Weaving, an intensive labor often associated with feminine work, is one of the signature treatments in Voet’s oeuvre, employing materials such as plastic bags, watches and wigs. As an exhibition, ‘06myflipside’ shines with a new linguistic turn, with Voet confidently manipulating an abundance of materials and treatments. The relation of form, materiality and objecthood with a diverse and intensive investment of labor, draws a sharp aesthetic difference from the artist’s former singular and minimal approach. A more porous deliberation on the work is permitted by the delicate visual balance and sense of freedom shared within the display.
With this in mind let us return to the underwater golden cave. The nonhierarchical distribution and collage of data—consisting of digitally stitched passwords, hand sewn private messages, mass-produced prints, professional reproduction of patterns and shapes and so on—actually composes what we in the information society call “the ocean of noise,” loudly waiting for our recognition. As we are busy processing, can we even consider passwords, though usually composed of a series of illegible letters, as a new form of literature? These coded words that are arranged to indicate passages, guarding space between the public and the private and providing a sense of terrains and levels of security, are rapidly created everyday around the globe by both humans and algorithms. They immediately create a sense of speed, opening one space after another. They change faces in a jump. How can we then further identify signals and hear music from this ocean? Steyerl suggests a good old method called apophenia, “the perception of patterns within random data.” She also reminds us that “today, the question of separating signal and noise has a fundamental political dimension. Pattern recognition resonates with the wider question of political recognition. Who is recognized on a political level and as what? As a subject? A person? A legitimate category of the population?”(3)
Stretching from this understanding, we may find ourselves on the desolate shore of data, feeling a sheer sensibility to grow an adaptable perception. With seamless composition, Voet’s work again reminds us of our exchangeable identity and what social beings we are, even as we now log in to different operations and systems as eyeless avatars. At the same time we are given the opportunity to see how we can decode machine-like and recognize how our politics are formed in every act of seeing, as well as in the serendipitous encounters of contemporary life. The exhibition also generously concedes that we may log out of it, with all sorts of other possibilities.
(1) Steyerl, Hito. “A Sea of Data: Apophenia and Pattern (Mis-)Recognition,” Duty Free Art. London: Verso, 2017.
(2) “DeepDream is a computer vision program created by Google engineer Alexander Mordvintsev which uses a convolutional neural network to find and enhance patterns in images via algorithmic pareidolia, thus creating a dream-like hallucinogenic appearance in the deliberately over-processed images.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeepDream. Accessed 7 May 2020.
(3) See note (1).
信息噪音大洋中的觀看技術
文｜呂岱如 ，2020年5月
與幾座繽紛展櫃裡的足球臉半身像對望後，令人費解的疑團隨之迸出。該非典型的組合由以下物件構成：一個實為現成物複製品的花瓶，上面放了戴著假髮的沈重水泥足球；而瓶身充滿民藝風格表情的樣式則在畫廊的白立方空間裡特別顯目。它們猶如博物館裡所陳列的古希臘頭像，被小心翼翼地珍藏在展示櫃中。展櫃每邊立面顏色各異，側映其中，半身像隨著觀者步伐的移動，散發出不同色調。於觀者不覺隨色彩在空間裡穿越和運動之際，我們也走入了海蒂．芙歐特的最新個展《06myflipside》，展牆上掛著多幅富有律動圖案的拼接橫幅，上頭佈滿各式訊息與數字，彷彿打造出聲音響亮的迷宮。
在第一印象的接觸裡，我們被暴於一個高密度勞作、且充斥著各種訊息與諸多不同造型語彙的世界，包括了材質、拼布工藝、形式、觀念上的疊置，在進一步留意到四面八方各種塗寫文字閃現之際，又似乎深入某種神秘領地：「password for the hidden under water golden cave 」(通往水底金色洞穴的密碼）。這行文字從背景中躍然而出，瞬時讓展覽和展名有了新的領會空間。
假若我們把「06myflipside」當作密碼，我們是否能夠找到那個翻轉隱藏的世界？在那個水底金色洞穴裡，我們的視覺還能接收到什麼？
密碼開始生出姿態，而冷面無臉頭像也在意義上完美成立。如此細密織起的世界實則描繪了信息導向的當代現實環境，橫幅上數位刺繡的密碼控管著登入這個主要動作，而除了這些難以識別的密碼流以外，我們也被引導到性質各異的空間，像是一些被個人筆記如購物清單、計算算式等暗示下的私密空間，或是為大量二手T恤裁下的標語性文字所揭露的半公開場域等。這些循環在日常生活各種領域的資訊集結體現了一個複雜高速系統，並將信息網絡中所串聯的各種空間向度，不論是心理或是虛擬上的，都具像化地呈現出來，更挑戰了我們在其中的觀看技術。誠如黑特．史德耶爾在其討論當代觀看的文章中所提及，「觀看被運算能力替代了，視力不再重要，取而代之的是過濾、解碼、圖形模式識別。」（1）現場展示物縝密地運算出一個寓言性空間，其中我們與滲透性的資訊基礎建設、控制運算所共存的存在感也被揭開。我們和那些沒有四肢的頭像一起在此開啟閱讀資訊模式，而它們更像是身份來去自由的使用者圖像，早已準備好潛入一場深沈夢境神經網絡的藝術演算法。（2）
我們該如何理解此數據矩陣世界？裡頭真正的信息為何？我們又如何擴延我們的視力並以超越人類心智的方式展開閱讀？亦或，我們所見所識的世界早被人工智慧滲透侵入？這個展覽意圖推展一個迫切的提問：是否已經到了人類應該要學習像機器一樣觀看和閱讀的時候了？
或許關照藝術家對於多種物質挪用的操練，可幫助我們繼續探索和想像藝術家對這些問題的回應與思考。在芙歐特長期的藝術實踐裡，她持續關注如何呈現出當下的存在狀態，以其高度雕琢出來的組織，敏銳地察覺所處的文化脈絡、價值體系與生產邏輯與循環，批判性地回應個體和社會的交互建構。藝術家經常透過使用毫不起眼的物件，在日常經驗裡擷取出通往特定歷史經驗、實踐或價值的符碼系統。舉例來說，花瓶是一個經常出現的元素，作為家飾物件所包覆出來的一種陰性負空間，在芙歐特早期的作品裡卻往往以水泥磚這種非傳統的材料塑成。透過其輕快的轉換，藝術家揭示其被性別化和變性化的社會過程，並進一步透過水泥－萊姆石－遠古海洋有機物骨骼殘骸在億萬年演化歷史中的形變，指涉生命形式與物質的轉化歷程。編織這項常被視為高密度的女性勞動技術也反覆出現在她的作品裡，處理過的素材包括塑膠袋、手錶、假髮等。由本展覽所選用的豐富材料和技法，我們可以觀察到芙歐特在此所透露的一種語言性轉向；多重形式、物質、物件之間的自信操作，自在而高強度的各種勞動投入，較以往偏向單一簡潔語彙的操作方式，劃下了一個嶄新的美學樣態，而展示物件所帶出的精巧視覺平衡和自由感受，也開啟了討論本展的多孔性空間。
讓我們帶著這份認知再度嘗試潛返水底金色洞穴。不分高下，各樣訊息被均值地分派與拼貼，包含了雷射繡字的整齊密碼、充滿手感筆觸的私人訊息、大量生產的圖印、對花瓶圖案與形制的專業複製等，全部匯流成為資訊社會裡所稱的信息噪音大洋，潮雜地等待我們的識別。而當我們忙著展開識別工作時，我們是否能夠將那些意義不清的密碼組串視為一種新的文體？這些在全球各處時時刻刻被人類及演算法所高速生產的加密文字，被安排作為特定通道的指標，守護著公共及私人領域的界線、安全層級。它們激生出一種速度感，打開一個接著一個的空間。它們還有著瞬間變臉的技術。我們又能如何在此大洋裡辨別出信號並聽到樂音呢？史德耶爾給我們提示了一個美好的老方法「圖形模式妄想症」（apophenia），也就是「定義為在隨機訊息中的圖形模式識別」，並且提醒我們「區別信號和噪音的問題在今日有其根本的政治向度。圖形模式識別正好回應了政治識別的廣泛問題。誰在政治層級上被識別出來？又被指認為何？是主體？某人？還是一種合法的人口類別？」（3）
順此拉開理解的向度，我們發現自己正站在荒涼的訊息海岸邊上，懷有絕對的感性且想要擁有一種更為適性、進階版的更新知覺。芙歐特的作品以其流暢的組構再度提示人類的社會化潛能和可替換性身份，我們或許也能像那些無眼的的使用者圖像，隨時登入不同的運作和系統，見識我們自身如何能夠像機器一樣解碼，並認識到我們的政治正在被每個觀看的動作、以及當代生活中的隨機相遇所形塑。展覽同時也大方地建議我們可以隨時登出到更多的可能性裡。
(1) Steyerl, Hito. “A Sea of Data: Apophenia and Pattern (Mis-)Recognition,” Duty Free Art. London: Verso, 2017.
(2) 此處的雙關語 DeepDream 是谷歌工程師 Alexander Mordvintsev 利用網絡神經運算以空想性錯視的演算法，在影像裡找到和強化圖形，在過度操作的圖像上創造出夢境般的幻象。https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeepDream. Accessed 7 May 2020.
(3) 同註 (1)。