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Art Review: Ghost on the Wire #2 The merge between technology and art

SINGAPORE — Science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke once noted that sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. We might not yet be there, but the exhibition Ghost On The Wire #2 takes a related tack as a starting point: The notion that our network technologies could harbour animating forces — or at least act as if they did.

SINGAPORE — Science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke once noted that sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. We might not yet be there, but the exhibition Ghost On The Wire #2 takes a related tack as a starting point: The notion that our network technologies could harbour animating forces — or at least act as if they did.

As an iteration of its first showing in the United Kingdom, Ghost On The Wire #2 brings together a diverse range of artists and practices from both countries. It’s not a simple show to sum up, but here are some high-(and low-)lights from the exhibition.

THE GREAT STUFF

1. Space Geodes by Debbie Ding

A geode, for those of us who fell asleep in science class, is a rock containing a cavity lined with crystals, in which a brisk trade is done at the Fu Lu Shou Complex. Rather than something as pedestrian as mineral deposits, Debbie’s geodes enclose spaces — amateur 3D scans of rooms — whose errors prevent them from being understood by 3D printing machines. One by one, Ding has corrected the impossible geometries of these mistakes, and 3D-printed them in miniature geodes, suspended in clear, acrylic display boxes, yielding a sense of floating. These are, in a sense, the machine world’s first, fitful glimpses into the spaces we live in.

2. LOVE, PIRACY by Manu Luksch and Mukul Patel

Censors are a wily breed these days. Books are no longer burned, but quietly removed from their shelves, and pulped. Media may be “denied classification” for any number of arcane reasons, while filter bubbles of our own making hem us online. Still, there’s something tangibly appealing about this work by Manu Luksch and Mukul Patel, which calls to mind redacted government documents, or the cult indie game The Republia Times. Across the 1,500 editions of the work’s printed component, there is also something deeply evocative about having all words, with the exception of one, censored in each text. There’s a twist though — each word left uncensored is different in each edition.

3. You Will Die Lulled By The Waves Of The Stormy Sea by Joo Choon Lin

According to proponents of The New Aesthetic, we have long waved at machines, and they have, in recent times, begun to wave back. That there could be an animating force in technological objects, or that our machines might gain awareness, have long been themes in fiction and art. Here, Joo’s suspended dot matrix printer hangs like a sword of Damocles, chattering every half hour as it outputs strange shapes and forms. The effect, however, is somewhat dulled by chains and other adornments of the printer, which seem to serve primarily to indicate that it’s Joo Choon Lin’s work.

THE NOT-SO-GREAT STUFF

1. Entrances and Exits by Emma Talbot

Painting on silk might be noteworthy enough to mention all on its own, but Talbot’s bold textile centrepiece depicts, with title and commentary inset, a few panels of miscellaneous vignettes of what might be comfortably disaffected young urbanites. In a style reminiscent of slightly indie, lavishly illustrated graphic novels, Talbot discusses transitions both literal and metaphorical. Twee is a word that comes to mind, though that might be somewhat blunted by the disquieting absence of faces in her eternally turned-away figures. While it is competent in its handling of paint, it is completely lacklustre in all other aspects, sort of like if you had taken a page from a graphic novel and had it blown up and printed on a silk banner.

2. Wear You All Night by Sarah Choo

In this frankly predictable video work, Choo thumbs her way through cliches concerning the transitory intimacy and alienation of hotel rooms. The video’s two characters wander into their respective rooms, presumably upset about something, in a split-screen format with oh-so-clever significant glances at each other. Meanwhile, inoffensive indie electronica warbles on in a manner as heavy-handed as its lighting. Combined with the appropriately chiselled cast and the charmingly appointed suites, there is presumably some satire on material wealth meant, but falls flat, as a plea, that the jet set has it hard too.

3. To Be One in Paradise and Staged Sets III by Camilla Greenwell

A roughly textured plaster surface is digitally grafted onto an image of a coastal cliff, using the eye-popping palette and in-your-face artifice so beloved of relentless users of social media. There is a playful sense of juxtaposition and de/re-contextualisation meant, but what comes across is a lifeless experiment-by-rote.

Ghost on the Wire #2 runs from Aug 18 to Sept 4, 12pm to 7pm, Tuesdays to Saturdays, and 12pm to 4pm on Sundays. Closed on Mondays and public holidays. At Objectifs, 155 Middle Road. Admission is free.

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