Curatorial Concept:
Is silence the opposite side of being heard? The exhibition “Postscript of Silence” aims to explore aspects of the world that have not yet been coded into the human perceptual lexicon, thereby examining and questioning knowledge pertaining to environments that are increasingly being technologized and operationalized.
Understanding and interpreting matter, life, and geological time through “operational ontologies” and a mediatized approach—as both a response to the anthropocentric ecological crisis and as a thematic element—are present in much of contemporary artistic creation. As Donna Haraway suggests, a range of life-extending imaging technologies (such as ultrasounds, MRIs, and electron microscopes) are gradually placing the objects of our focus and nature itself in the position of the observed. This allows more observational detail to infiltrate previously unknown domains, rendering them readable, understandable, and exploitable, and integrating them into a worldview underpinned by scientific thought. In “Postscript of Silence,” this operationalization of natural knowledge involves not only a foundational infrastructure for probing, verifying, and processing data and signals but also implies a set of actions and management patterns driven by scientific or objective reasoning. The fascination with laws, models, and even predictions often overlook the fact that scientific perception is also a form of collective empiricism, and that the dynamics of knowledge categorized as “scientific” are flows of power rather than flows of truth.
Confronted with this situation, the exhibition takes silence as its metaphorical point of departure, aiming to carve out an interpretive method that does not center on the visual or scientific by utilizing a series of key terms centered around acoustics, listening, or the reachable environs and technologies of sound (such as muting, silencing, or inaudible entities). This leads us to focus on non-standardized operations, undecodable signals, and fugitive, elusive, uncaptured, or unidentified elements. Through the works or projects of 23 artists or artists groups, the exhibition allows the environments and natural entities that resist objectification and defy prediction and regulation to make their voices heard. In the gaps between sound emission and its capture or listening, the show implies a newly reopened cognitive pathway.
聆听的反面是无声吗？展览“无声之后”意在探索尚未被编码入人类感知语系的万物，亦就此考察和提问那些逐渐被技术化和操作化（operational）的有关环境的知识。
以媒介化方法和“操作性的本体论”（operational ontologies）展开对于物质、生命及地球时间的理解和演绎，既是对人类世生态危机的回应，也存在于许多当代创作之中。如唐娜·哈拉维所言，一系列生命的扩延显影技术（超声、核磁共振，电子显微镜等等）逐渐让我们所关注的对象和自然处于客体的位置，让更多的观测细节渗入未知的领域，使其成为可阅读、理解并利用的对象，并纳入到以科学为底色的世界认知体系中。在“无声之后”的语境里，这种对自然知识的“操作”既包含一套探测、检验和处理数据和信号的基础设施，也隐含着一套科学或客观性驱动的行为和管理模式。对于规律、模型乃至预测的迷恋，恰恰忽视了科学感知也是一种集体的经验主义，以及被划界为“科学”内外的知识动态本身亦是权力的流动，而非真相的流动。
面对上述境况，展览以“无声”为隐喻的起点，试图通过一系列围绕声学、聆听、或声音可抵达的环境和技术展开的关键词（静音、噤声、无声物等），来打开一条非视觉中心亦非科学中心的阅读路径，投射进以媒介基础设施为轴线的现代进程与自然的纠葛之中。我们将注意力投向那些非标准化的操作，不可被解码的信号和游离、逃逸、不被捕捉和鉴定的因子。通过23位/组艺术家的创作，让这些拒绝被客体化的环境知识，无法预测和规则之外的自然本体发出声响，并在声音的发出与被采集、聆听之间的空隙中，推演一种被重新打开的认识路径。
︎Exhibition catalog︎
Educational Programmes:
︎ Artist Lecture ︎
Data Design: Ephemerality vs Permanence
Artist: Jeroen van Loon
Date: 5 Nov, 2023
︎ Lecture Performance ︎
Tellurian Drama 2
Artist: Riar Rizaldi
Date: 11 Nov, 2023
︎ Artist Lecture ︎
Beyond-the-Human Arts
Artist: Jol Thoms
Date: 12 Nov, 2023
︎ Artist Lecture ︎
You can find it when you face the sun, close your eyes
Artist: knowbotiq
Date: 16 Dec, 2023
︎ Artist Lecture ︎
Data Design: Ephemerality vs Permanence
Artist: Jeroen van Loon
Date: 5 Nov, 2023
︎ Lecture Performance ︎
Tellurian Drama 2
Artist: Riar Rizaldi
Date: 11 Nov, 2023
︎ Artist Lecture ︎
Beyond-the-Human Arts
Artist: Jol Thoms
Date: 12 Nov, 2023
︎ Artist Lecture ︎
You can find it when you face the sun, close your eyes
Artist: knowbotiq
Date: 16 Dec, 2023