MY AMP GOES TO 11

Commissioned to work with SALT Research collections, artist Refik Anadol employed machine learning algorithms to search and sort relations among 1,700,000 documents. Interactions of the multidimensional data found in the archives are, in turn, translated into an immersive media installation. Archive Dreaming, which is presented as part of The Uses of Art: Final Exhibition with the support of the Culture Programme of the European Union, is user-driven; however, when idle, the installation “dreams” of unexpected correlations among documents. The resulting high-dimensional data and interactions are translated into an architectural immersive space.

Shortly after receiving the commission, Anadol was a resident artist for Google’s Artists and Machine Intelligence Program where he closely collaborated with Mike Tyka and explored cutting-edge developments in the field of machine intelligence in an environment that brings together artists and engineers. Developed during this residency, his intervention Archive Dreaming transforms the gallery space on floor -1 at SALT Galata into an all-encompassing environment that intertwines history with the contemporary, and challenges immutable concepts of the archive, while destabilizing archive-related questions with machine learning algorithms.

In this project, a temporary immersive architectural space is created as a canvas with light and data applied as materials. This radical effort to deconstruct the framework of an illusory space will transgress the normal boundaries of the viewing experience of a library and the conventional flat cinema projection screen, into a three dimensional kinetic and architectonic space of an archive visualized with machine learning algorithms. By training a neural network with images of 1,700,000 documents at SALT Research the main idea is to create an immersive installation with architectural intelligence to reframe memory, history and culture in museum perception for 21st century through the lens of machine intelligence.

SALT is grateful to Google’s Artists and Machine Intelligence program, and Doğuş Technology, ŠKODA, Volkswagen Doğuş Finansman for supporting Archive Dreaming.

Location : SALT Gatala, Istanbul, Turkey Exhibition Dates : April 20 – June 11 6 Meters Wide Circular Architectural Installation 4 Channel Video, 8 Channel Audio Custom Software, Media Server, Table for UI Interaction

Type : Lighting Installation Curator : Hin Bus Depot for Urban Xchange 2015 Location : Butterworth, Penang Year : 2015 Project Team : Jun Ong, Ronald Lim, Steven Lay, Eeyan Chuah, Gabi Grusaite, Khing Chuah

Inspired by the notion of “glitch,” a dodecahedron - a 12-sided star-shaped installation appears almost as an error or a temporary irregularity, suddenly finding itself lodged within the concrete superstructure of an unfinished building by the street of Raja Uda.

The term “glitch” was used to describe a spike or change in voltage in an electric current, first recorded in a space program. It is a manifestation of the sterile conditions of Butterworth, a once thriving industrial port and significant terminal between the mainland and island. The odd juxtaposition of “Star” with its “host” creates new relationships, tangible and intangible. It is an accumulation of digital and analogue irregularities, becoming a transient portal to a new dimension.

Comprised of five hundred metres of steel cables and LED strips, the “Star” abstracts kitsch street decorations with electrical cables and transposing them into a formal, recognizable entity. The cables are anchored to ground, slabs, cantilever beams and adjacent buildings to form the overall shape. As one steps closer, the installation segregates itself into several floors, each becoming its own spatial experience. The form breaks down into glowing lines, each fragment holding its own electrical and structural characteristic.

Video

“There is no single recipe for making the perfect tea, as there are no rules for producing a Titian or a Sesson. Each preparation of the leaves has its individuality, its special affinity with water and heat, its own method of telling a story. The truly beautiful must always be in it. How much do we not suffer through the constant failure of society to recognise this simple and fundamental law of art and life” Kakuzō Okakura, The Book of Tea

“I’ve spent the last 35 years of my photographic career investigating movement and its expressive potential. My inspiration has always been photography’s ability to stop time and reveal what the naked eye cannot see. What intrigues me is making images that confound and confuse the viewer, but that the viewer knows, or suspects, really happened.The ostensible subject of my photographs may be motion, but the subtext is time. A dancer’s movements illustrate the passage of time, giving it a substance, materiality, and space. In my photographs, time is stopped, a split second becomes an eternity, and an ephemeral moment is solid as sculpture. My interest in photography is not to capture an image I see or even have in my mind, but to explore the potential of moments I can only begin to imagine.I prefer to work outside the constraints of choreography, collaborating with dancers on improvised, non-repeatable, often high-risk moments. These moments are not plucked from a continuum, but exist only as isolated instants. There is a dynamic tension between dance and photography. I exploit photography’s ability to fragment time and fracture space, translating 360 degrees into a 2 dimensional image, depicting moments beneath the threshold of perception.I am dealing in the poetics of a visual language rather than in its literalness.  I want my images to defy rational explanation. There is no “solution” to the questions posed by my photographs- they are meant to frame contradictions, present the impossible, and find coherence within chaos. All my pictures are taken as single image, in-camera photographs. I never recombine or rearrange the figures within my images. Their veracity as documents gives the photographs their mystery, and the surrealism of the imagery comes from the fact that our brains don’t register split seconds of movement.“