AT: Comma Space
15 – 23 July, 2023
OPENING: 15 July – 3-6pm
ARTIST TOURS: 16 July (3-4pm)
Media Partner: Glass Magazine
more info
press-release
Delve into the realm of interconnected realities as Yutaka Inagawa metamorphoses Comma Space into a multilayered mixed-media installation. Bridging personal narratives, AI-generated digital realities, and a diverse range of immaterial worlds, this exhibition immerses you in a mesmerizing exploration of the intricate web of existence.
“Speak Spindle つむ・くち” presents a sensory labyrinth traversing the physical and transmaterial realms. Inagawa’s work interlaces the tangible world with numerous immaterial domains – the digital, the cerebral, the spiritual, and realms of ‘otherness’.
The exhibition showcases visual timestamps from his tangible reality, captured through Inagawa’s lens – personal digital photographs from his Singapore trip in 2017. The collective consciousness of the AI tool ‘Mid Journey’ transfigures his personal photos into blended images, generating an ethereal photographic reality that is reflective of both the artist’s physical constraints as a shooter and the technological limits of the time. This collaboration results in a peculiarly but smoothly fused photographic reality underscored by an invisible digital logic.
From a reservoir of more than 2500 AI-generated images, Inagawa curates a careful selection for his series of satin prints, thereby creating complex, multi-dimensional landscapes of mesmerizing diversity. “Speak Spindle” binds various elements beyond the satin prints. It features soft sculptures, a personal item – a small body bag – and its semi-abstract replica, swathed in satin skin, alongside graphically enhanced short wordings. Each element carries traces of Inagawa’s personal narrative, composing a puzzling aesthetic experience and acting as multiple gateways into an intricate web of interconnectedness.
Inagawa’s exploration of the interplay of language, emotion, and visual language takes a new stride from his collaborative online project with curator Ying Kwok, titled ‘Say to Day’ (2020). He presents visually structured mural phrases extracted from the digital cacophony, including Twitter and personal WhatsApp messages, and translated multiple times from Japanese to English. This process invites a dialogic relationship between language, emotions, and visual representation.
“Speak Spindle つむ・くち” offers a glimpse into the intricate fabric of shared experiences and nonsensicality where a blend of words, images, and objects dances across the boundary between physical and transmaterial ontology. The exhibition promises a captivating encounter between these realms that will undoubtedly resonate with viewers.”
ABOUT COMMA SPACE 逗号空间
Comma Space 逗号空间 is an artist-run experimental art space. Comma Space aims to provide opportunities and infrastructure in supporting contemporary art practice. Referring to the comma’s functionality of separating, setting off phrases, expressing contrast, Comma Space is a hub for creativity and criticism, bonding with people from different backgrounds, and reaching out to the local communities, and demonstrates ways in which art is vital as part of society. Comma Space makes art, curates exhibitions, commissions projects, generates and applies research, and supports local, regional and international contemporary artists.
comma-space.com
Midjourney, typically designed as an image-generating AI that produces visuals from natural language prompts, is uniquely employed for the creation of a series of digital architectures constructed specifically for this show in Singapore.
Only two commands, 'Blend' and 'Describe', were used to explore and understand the underlying logic of these digital architectures.
Resembling condominiums, the digital architecture encompasses various pictorial vocabularies and digital textures. The design features 16 compartmentalized rooms, each hosting an AI-generated image and a 'recipe' produced from that image.
This dual-step process engaged two generative stages: 'images to image' (Blend command) and 'image to natural language (Describe command).
The exclusive selection of photos used in the Blend command feature personal snapshots from varied locations in Singapore, including Changi Airport, a Hawker Centre, a friend's house, the city's nightscape, Mustafa Centre, the Peranakan Museum, and even fellow artists interacting with exercise equipment on the streets.
Captured with a compact digital camera, these images comprise a personal archive of the artist's journey
This endeavor was not an evaluation, but a creative exploration and celebration of Midjourney's ability to grapple with improbable blending tasks and re-envision the outcomes.
The so-called 'misinterpretations' served as unexpected leaps into creativity, tapping into an alternative, parallel reality. Out of 2500 AI-generated images, 64 images, imbued with an otherworldly and surreal quality difficult to describe in physical terms, were specifically selected.
These chosen images were then further explored through Midjourney's 'Describe' command, generating language prompts that continued to challenge physical reality and adhered to their own unique logic.
Colored pencils and graphite were utilized to create wall texts. Through spontaneous color application and graphic aesthetics, these texts take on a mural-like quality.
They exist in a realm that simultaneously acknowledges textual graphics, the physical labor stereotypically intrinsic to art-making, and the distinctive touch of the artist's hand, offering multiple perspectives on creation
The sculptural piece emulates a body bag the artist has used over the years. Stripped of its functionality, it stands as a sculptural entity, akin to other sculptures but closely related to the concept of the artist's personal timeline and emotional attachment.
The series of satin print, with its mutable, high-sheen surface, operates as a physical embodiment of the digital architecture and acts as a digital skin, representing the mutability and transience of digital entities. Its luminescent surface and shapeshifting form playfully echo the glow of the computer screens we routinely use to access and visualize digital elements. This choice of material, while practical, introduces an element of absurdity and injects a sense of humor into the artwork, offering a light-hearted yet poignant commentary on the fluid and paradoxical nature of digital existence
The digital textures, which were initially derived from physical drawings on paper, were resized using AI from approximately 14cm x 14cm to 200cm x 126cm. These high-resolution images are enriched with AI-reimagined digital textures.
Designed with multiplicity in mind, the satin soft sculptures can exist as individual works of art, manifesting the idea of a digital skin given physical form. They invite interaction and exploration, resembling mutated garments that one could slip an arm into. Beyond that, they can relate to architectural elements, molding to corners or conforming to the carved surfaces of larger objects. In this sense, they act as versatile modules, adapting to various structures and conditions while aligning with human body dimensions.