神经学操练场 | 郑曦然 Ian Cheng
郑曦然 Ian Cheng
b. 1984 洛杉矶 (Los Angeles, California)
现生活和工作在纽约
currently lives and works in New York
▲ 艺术家郑曦然 Ian Cheng 摄影 / Photo: Christian Kain.
“模拟不是一种象征或再现。它是承载着现实之动态过程的沙盘，或是现实的操练场。”
—郑曦然，2015年
郑曦然的艺术实践以其创造的虚拟生态系统而著名。他的作品探索着人类行为的本质和认知系统的进化机制，在人工智能技术和人类混沌的生存处境之间建立起连接。他的整体创作审视了突变的本质、人类意识的历史、以及我们作为物种在应对改变时的能力。围绕着演算法电子游戏的基本设计原则、即兴创作、以及认知科学，郑曦然逐步发展出现场实时模拟的形式——它是一个无限持续时间的虚拟生态系统，栖居着经过编程而具有行为驱动力、不受作者意图限制并具有自我进化能力的个体，遵照着与自然界中同样严苛甚至时常残酷的因果法则。
▲ 《跟铀一样单调》Droning like a Ur, 2014, 现场实时模拟、有声 Live simulation, sound; 无限持续时间 Infinite duration.
郑曦然1984年出生于加州洛杉矶。他在大学期间对神经学产生了强烈的兴趣，并获得了认知科学学位。后来他在美国导演乔治·卢卡斯的光影魔幻工业特效公司（IndustrialLight & Magic）工作了一年。这间公司于1975年《星际大战》的制作期间成立，被认为是全球最顶尖的电影视觉特效公司。在此之后，郑曦然进入哥伦比亚大学学习，并获得新媒体艺术硕士学位。在这里，他碰巧对心理自助方面的书籍（self-helpbooks）产生了兴趣，这帮助塑造了他对于自控或缺乏自控、以及进化认知改变的看法。他曾这样描述自己在阅读这些书籍时的兴趣：“我上学时读了大量的自助类的书籍……心理自助大师托尼·罗宾斯曾说，外部世界对人类而言太不成比例和随机，这令人很难做出有意的改变或持续的控制。不过他还说，你可以根据生活的起伏来学习控制自己的情绪状态，而不仅仅是应对变化。佛教也传授着相同的教导。”
▲ 《千岛千法》Thousand Islands Thousand Laws, 2013, 现场实时模拟、有声 Live simulation, sound; 无限持续时间 Infinite duration.
这些早期经历潜移默化地激发艺术家产生了那些看似迥异的、对人类认知发展和使用技术的兴趣，它们既是模拟的工具也是形式。对郑曦然而言，认知科学和软件开发的特征实际上颇为相似，特别是在这个人工智能迅猛发展的时代。郑曦然在谈及最近的历史发展时说：“只有在今天，当我们想到计算机时，才会自然地把它想作是一个连接着各种体验和技能的入口，就像是有机体的生命……它不是一名超级精准的管理员；它是包含了处理外部世界的小软件所构成的生态系统的容器。”在作品中，郑曦然对虚拟现实展开广泛探索，借由技术来审视认知的发展，同时在根本上质疑了我们关于决定论的哲学。
▲ 《使者》展览现场，柏林朱莉亚·斯托切克收藏馆, 2018.04.27–07.01 / Installation view of Emissaries, Julia Stoschek Collection, Berlin, 2018.04.27–07.01.
【 媒介 】
郑曦然的现场实时模拟形式主要由电子游戏开发程序所构建。艺术家通过挪用软件以制作一种能够“愚蠢地”学习自己玩这个游戏的电子游戏。程序中运作的涌现原则（Principle of Emergence）充分决定了现场实时模拟如何生长、变化、反馈和学习。涌现体现出在简单的事物和法则中，复杂的突发情况可能涌现或发生。为创造涌现发生的模拟环境，郑曦然通过编写简单的个人代码来描述他动画中的细小行为——为与之配对，他还编码了一组随之可以改变他所创造的虚拟世界整体运行机制的行为“法则”。于是，这个现场实时模拟的基本结构就完全取决于诸多微小代码的总和，而非预先设定好的整体结构。郑曦然解释道：“模拟最终成为一个虚拟空间，承载着没有总体设计、但行动和反应着的迷你-行为与法则所累计的庞大总和，这里只有趋势，并且彼此平行运作。”通过模拟现实的复杂变量，郑曦然的现场实时模拟本体论表现为没有预先决定的设计，就像是生命体的本质。
▲ 《木瓜的味道很完美》This Papaya Tastes Perfect, 2011, 来自动作捕捉技术的动画、声音 Animation from motion capture choreography, sound; 时长 Duration: 08'00".
【早期作品】
在发展出现场实时模拟以前，郑曦然用动画构建着模仿现实的虚拟世界。他受商业动画的启发，创作了一件时长八分钟、极富开创性的录像项目《木瓜的味道很完美》（2011），这也为他之后的创作开启了一扇崭新的大门。这件作品用动作捕捉技术再现了艺术家在纽约市目睹的一对夫妇和一名司机之间的斗殴。录像里的原始身体和动作凸显出动作捕捉技术的缺陷，以及在混乱的环境中人类行为的不可预测性。
▲ 《熵牧人》展览现场，杜塞多夫Off Vendome, 2013.02.22–05.04 / Installation view of Entropy Wrangler, Off Vendome, Düsseldorf, 2013.02.22–05.04.
告别了预先设定的动画形式，郑曦然的现场实时模拟作品始于2013年他在纽约Off Vendome画廊举办的个展“熵牧人”。这标志着艺术家与预先设置的录像的决裂，后者在每一秒内都处于被支配、决定和完美化。在《熵牧人》（2013）中，郑曦然试图构建一个可以塑造行为模式的系统——在这里，行为本身成为一个可以用来研究、再现和美学化的不稳定媒介。
▲ 《熵牧人》Entropy Wrangler, 2013, 现场实时模拟、有声 Live simulation, sound; 无限持续时间 Infinite duration.
对于这件作品，郑曦然表示：“《熵牧人》是我制作的第一件模拟作品，它起源于我想要找到一种能够保留这些动态过程的格式，而不仅仅是再现它们……《熵牧人》和可识别的物件聚集在一起，每一个个体都受到原型行为的支配，并且它们全部被放置在同一个房间内。我们观察到——与现现场实时间同步——这些已知的行为模式发生变形，并且在遭遇另一个个行为或实体时变得陌生化。”《熵牧人》奠定了郑曦然之后的现场模拟作品的基础概念，反映出同样影响着自然生命的熵和进化过程。
▲ 《郑曦然》展览现场，纽约现代艺术博物馆PS1, 2017.04.09–09.25 / Installation view of Ian Cheng, MoMA PS1, New York, 2017.04.09–09.25.
【 使者 】
2017年，纽约现代艺术博物馆PS1馆首次呈现了郑曦然的“使者三部曲”（Emissaries Trilogy，2015–17），这组现场实时模拟作品也采用了他标志性的游戏技术。作品所使用的计算机模拟技术，是通常应用于处理复杂状况的预测性技术，比如气候变化或选举。作品描绘了一系列在开放性叙事中相互互动、干涉、重组的人物和野生动植物，它们作为一个自给自足的生态系统持续地进化。不同于《熵牧人》中的事物从一开始就根据编程而涌现，“使者”系列最显著的差别在于其所模拟的特定角色被编程为“目标”，因此总是受不断变化的现场叙事所驱动。“使者”系列中的故事线和主人公使用了复杂的逻辑系统、涌现原则和人工智能的多重模型的相互串联。三部曲中每一次模拟都设置在相同的火山喷发地，只是彼此相隔几千年之久，而每次模拟的人物——使者——都肩负着明确的使命，并且在这些新发的混乱中担任掌舵者。
▲ 《神踞之下的使者》Emissary in the Squat of Gods, 2015, 现场实时模拟、有声 Live simulation, sound; 无限持续时间 Infinite duration.
“使者三部曲”之第一部《神踞之下的使者》由两个相互冲突的形式组成：其中一频模拟了一个面临着地质威胁的古老社会；另一频描绘了使者产生意识的决定性故事。在这里，使者以一个小女孩的形象出现，她在迫在眉睫的压力下，从原始的头脑中进化出来。这个女孩知道附近的火山即将爆发，于是试图劝说整个部落撤离，尽管其中萨满教父亲式的角色不断破坏着她的努力。这些人物被置于相同的地貌中，每一个存在都可能动摇和改变他者的存在。
在第二部《完善中的使者叉状图》中，人工智能的主角变成了一条用金狗绳牵引的狗，它需要完成搜索最后的人类的任务。这只柴犬在一群游荡犬和快速闪过的动画草从间寻觅着完美的人类生命，试图使一位21世纪的名人复活。在焦虑的驱动下，狗和人之间的关系相互影响。当柴犬的情绪反应因人类而变得无法承受，它将被新的柴犬所替代。
▲ 《使者落幕自我》Emissary Sunsets The Self, 2017, 现场实时模拟、有声 Live simulation, sound; 无限持续时间 Infinite duration.
作为三部曲之终结篇，《使者落幕自我》里的使者是一个有感知能力的黄色水洼。当半人类把海葵视为威胁并将其摧毁，水洼通过不断地变异和生长来长出新的海葵。这个有感知的人工智能水洼在行使使命的过程中学会了占有其他物种的能力，因此会化身为其他物种并体验它们的生命力。这些半人半柴犬的形象经由编程摧毁着任何激进的反常事物，在本能的驱动下破坏着水洼中的海葵。在每次模拟中，混乱的叙事在塑造中摆脱了任何固定性，无限地持续进入到稳定的混沌序列之中。
▲ 《郑曦然》展览现场，伦敦蛇形画廊美术馆, 2018.03.06–05.28 / Installation view of Ian Cheng, Serpentine Galleries, London, 2018.03.06–05.28.
当谈及在现场模拟中使用叙事元素时，郑曦然解释道：“我认为叙事是一种技术——故事就是在我们从无意义的现实中制造意义时所使用的情感脚手架。一方面，宇宙毫无意义。好吧。另一方面，我们是叙事性的生物，并且需要依靠故事来确立我们自己的情境知觉，也就是意义。但还有另一方面，就是我们会被艰难地推向生命的某些时刻，在这些时刻中，我们的生命剧本被毫无意义的突发事件所打断，或者被某些偶然的情境带离原本使我们舒适的故事。在这些时刻里，我们不得不去创造新的故事，新的剧本，我们需要扩展叙事的维度，从而处理那些未知之物。我试图利用这些情境来把这些超自然的原始力聚合在一起。”
▲ 《使者》草图 Emissaries Drawing, 2015.
和郑曦然的其他实践一样，“使者三部曲”深受他的认知科学背景的影响，以及艺术家对美国心理学家朱利安·杰恩斯（Julian Jaynes）于1976年提出的假说“二分心智”（bicameral mind）的兴趣。尽管颇受争议，但杰恩斯提出早期人类缺乏自我意识，他们生活在无休止的当下中，并且不具备自我反思的认知能力。杰恩斯还指出，直到差不多3000年前，人类心智都还在一个“二分”的系统中运作，也就是说人类的左侧半脑和右侧半脑分别独立运作。杰恩斯假设，支配身体动作的左半脑会在没有意识到右侧半脑理性的“听到”命令时，以幻听的形式作出反应。在面对压力时，这些专制的声音可能被认为是发自于神明或灵魂，驱动人类做出社会性行为。杰恩斯认为，只有当人类发展出抽象的隐喻表达和随后出现的叙事性思维时，人类在面对外部世界的复杂变化时，才从“二分心智”中发展出自我意识和自我反思能力。
▲ 《郑曦然》展览现场，伦敦蛇形画廊美术馆, 2018.03.06–05.28 / Installation view of Ian Cheng, Serpentine Galleries, London, 2018.03.06–05.28.
就像杰恩斯的认知发展理论所阐述的那样，“使者”对进化和行为模式作出假设，只不过更为独特地使用了计算机编程的演算法操作。郑曦然的现场实时模拟通常视觉化呈现出主体获得自我意识的过程中所遭遇的认识失调和断裂，更进一步探索了人类社会中永恒存在的群体动力学和意识行为。因此，对郑曦然而言，技术和模拟成为了对人类心理展开历史性挖掘的重要工具。
▲ 《BOB（信仰之袋）》BOB, 2018, 人工智能创造的动画生物 Artificial lifeform; 尺寸可变 Dimensions variable.
【 BOB 】
继“使者”之后，郑曦然又召集和带领一支技术团队，创作了作品《BOB （信仰之袋）》（BOB，Bag of Beliefs），一个由人工智能创造的动画生物。它浸润于科技之中，但同时在自我驱动的解释性感知力、以及与观众的互动中，持续观察、感知和感受，不断地学习和进化。BOB的存在是高度主观性的，郑曦然在每个BOB中采用硬编码软件参数，这并非旨在预测单一独立的行动，而是要创造出在艺术家的作者权之外产生不端行为、偏见和个性表达的条件。郑曦然近期在蛇形画廊举办的展览中，观众可以通过一个“BOB设备”与现场实时模拟发生互动，这个智能手机可以通过追踪和最终记录画廊参观者的行动，从而塑造生物体整体的进化和发展过程。作为独立、有感知能力的生物体，BOB能够用它的世界来感知周遭的参观者，根据它自己的判断来决定是否参与和互动。由于它本身就是一个动画程序，因此观众可以通过LED直播观看，或通过使用手持工具来与之互动。在BOB中，郑曦然通过创造人工智能实体，拓展着人工智能的边界，最终证明了技术本身的思维能力。
▲ 《郑曦然》展览现场，伦敦蛇形画廊美术馆, 2018.03.06–05.28 / Installation view of Ian Cheng, Serpentine Galleries, London, 2018.03.06–05.28.
郑曦然在他的“神经学操练场”上拓展着他对意识发展的探索，无论其对象是人工智能还是自然的人类。他说：“对我而言，艺术就像是对我们意识黑客的挖掘。艺术不能改变世界，但它可以发现和保存新的感知。它可以促发突变物在我们心智中生长。从这个角度看，艺术不是一件东西，它更像是一个界面，一个刺激物或促进因素，用来排演新的神经激活模式。”对郑曦然来说，模拟既是一个工具，也是一个人类进化过程的产物，它最终将帮助我们进一步挖掘人类心智中的复杂性，推动我们对人性的探索。
【 重要美术馆及画廊展览 】
郑曦然的个展举办机构包括：柏林朱莉亚·斯托切克收藏馆（2018）；伦敦蛇形画廊（2018）；纽约现代艺术博物馆（MoMA）PS1馆（2017）；匹兹堡卡内基艺术博物馆（2017）；苏黎世米格罗斯博物馆（2016）；米兰三年展中心（2014）等。此外，他曾多次受邀参与国际重要艺术机构举办的群展，其中包括：哥本哈根路易斯安那现代艺术博物馆（2017）；横滨三年展（2017）；华盛顿特区赫施霍恩博物馆与雕塑园（2016）；纽约惠特尼美国艺术博物馆（2016）；台北双年展（2014）；第12届里昂双年展（2013）；纽约雕塑中心（2012）。郑曦然拥有哥伦比亚大学艺术硕士学位（2006），以及加州大学伯克利分校认知科学和艺术实践双学士学位（2006）。
“Simulation is not a symbolization or a representation. It is a sandbox of reality’s dynamic processes, or like reality’s gym.”
—Ian Cheng，2015
Known for his virtual ecosystems that explore the nature of human behavior and cognitive evolution, Ian Cheng’s practice can be seen as a link between artificial intelligence technologies and our chaotic human existence. His body of work investigates the nature of mutation, the history of human consciousness, and our capacity as a species to relate to change. Drawing on basic principles of algorithmic videogame design, improvisation and cognitive science, Cheng develops live simulations– virtual ecosystems of infinite duration, populated with agents who are programmed with behavioral drives but left to self-evolve without authorial intent, following the same unforgiving and often brutal causality found in nature.
Born in Los Angeles, California, in 1984, Cheng began his interest in neurology during his college years, where he studied cognitive science. Cheng subsequently worked a year at George Lucas’s company, Industrial Light & Magic, known for being one of the world’s leading motion picture visual effects companies, founded in 1975 during the production of Star Wars. From there, Cheng went on to receive an MFA from Columbia University in the field of New Media, where he coincidentally found an interest in self-help books, which would help to shape his outlook on control, or lack thereof, and evolutionary cognitive change. On his interest in the books he was reading at the time, the artist has explained, “I read a lot of self-help literature during school…The self-help guru Tony Robbins said the external world is too out of scale and random for humans to change deliberately or control consistently. But he says you can learn to control your emotional state to weather life’s ups and downs and not merely be reactive to change. Buddhists say the same thing.”
▲ 《千岛千法》Thousand Islands Thousand Laws, 2013, 现场实时模拟、有声 Live simulation, sound; 无限持续时间 Infinite duration.
These formative experiences developed in tandem his, seemingly disparate, interests in the development of human cognition and the use of technology as both a means and a form of mimesis. For Cheng, the properties of cognitive science and software development are in fact quite similar, particularly in this rising age of artificial intelligence. Cheng has said of this recent historical development, “Only today, when we think of computers, do we naturally relate to it as a portal to a variety of experiences and abilities, closer to the life of an organism…It is not one mega mathematical janitor; it is a container of an ecosystem of little softwares that deal with the external world.” In his work, Cheng has developed an extensive practice that explores virtual realities, investigates cognitive evolution through technology, and ultimately questions our philosophies on determinism.
▲ 《使者》展览现场，柏林朱莉亚·斯托切克收藏馆, 2018.04.27–07.01 / Installation view of Emissaries, Julia Stoschek Collection, Berlin, 2018.04.27–07.01.
Medium
The live simulations that Cheng creates are constructed primarily with a video game development engine. Cheng appropriates this software to make a type of video game that learns, “stupidly,” to play itself. The principle of emergence functioning within the program is key to how the live simulations grow, mutate, respond, and learn. Emergence is the concept that from simple properties and laws, unexpected complexity can emerge or occur. To create a simulated atmosphere where emergence can occur, Cheng writes small individualized code that describe minute behavior for his animations—paired with this, he also writes a set of behavioral “laws” that then modify the overall physics of the virtual worlds he creates. The basic structure of his live simulations is then entirely determined on the accumulation of many micro codes, as opposed to a predesigned, whole structure. Cheng explains, “The simulation in the end is a virtual space with a huge accumulation of mini-behaviors and laws that act and react to each other with no master design, just tendencies, all playing out in parallel with each other.” By mimicking the complex variables of reality, the ontology of Cheng’s live simulations is manifested without predetermined design, much like the nature of life itself.
Early Works
Before the development of Cheng’s live simulations, Cheng created his simulated worlds that mimicked reality through animation. Inspired by commercial animation, his seminal project, This Papaya Tastes Perfect (2011), is an eight-minute video that formed the gateway into his later works. This Papaya Tastes Perfect utilized motion-capture technology to record a re-enactment of a brawl that the artist had witnessed in New York City between a couple and a car driver. The rudimentary bodies and motions in the video highlight the imperfections of the motion-capture technology and reflect unpredictable elements of human behavior set in a chaotic environment.
▲ 《熵牧人》展览现场，杜塞多夫Off Vendome, 2013.02.22–05.04 / Installation view of Entropy Wrangler, Off Vendome, Düsseldorf, 2013.02.22–05.04.
A departure from his pre-determined video animations, Cheng’s live simulations began in 2013 with his solo exhibition, titled “Entropy Wrangler,” at Off Vendome in New York City. This was the breaking point from a preset video, where every second was labored and determined and perfected. In Entropy Wrangler (2013), Cheng sought to create a system that could model behavior—where behavior itself could become a volatile medium to study, recreate, and aestheticize.
▲ 《熵牧人》Entropy Wrangler, 2013, 现场实时模拟、有声 Live simulation, sound; 无限持续时间 Infinite duration.
On the work, Cheng explains, “Entropy Wrangler, the first simulation I made, came out of the desire to find a format that could hold these dynamics, not just represent them… Entropy Wrangler begins with recognizable objects, each with archetypical behaviors driving them, and puts them all in the same room. We observe—live in real time—these known patterns of behavior mutate and become more alien with each encounter with another object’s behavior or physics.” Forming the conceptual base for the live simulations that followed, Entropy Wrangler reflected the same entropy and evolutionary processes that affect natural life.
Emissaries
In 2017, MoMA PS1 premiered Cheng’s Emissaries trilogy (2015–17), a series of live simulation works created using his signature gaming technology. The works are comprised of computer-generated simulations like those used in predictive technologies for complex scenarios, such as climate change or elections. Populated by a cast of characters and wildlife that interact, intervene, and recombine in open-ended narratives, Emissaries evolve endlessly as self-contained ecosystems. In contrast to Entropy Wrangler, where the elements are completely emergent through their baseline programmed existence, the driving distinction of Emissaries is that certain characters in the simulations are programmed with “goals” that drive an ever-changing, live narrative. The plot lines and protagonists within Emissaries utilize complex logic systems, principles of emergence, and multiple models of artificial intelligence stitched together. Each simulation of the trilogy is set on the same volcanic site separated by thousands of years, and one character in each simulation – the Emissary – has a defined purpose, and acts as a steering force through the emergent chaos.
▲ 《神踞之下的使者》Emissary in the Squat of Gods, 2015, 现场实时模拟、有声 Live simulation, sound; 无限持续时间 Infinite duration.
Emissary in the Squat of Gods, the first simulation in the trilogy, is comprised of two conflicting forms: a simulation of an ancient community facing a geological threat; and a deterministic story of an emissary’s emerging consciousness. The emissary in this work takes the form of a small girl, who has evolved out of her primordial mind through the stress of an impending threat. The girl knows that the nearby volcano is about to erupt and attempts to motivate the whole tribe to evacuate despite the Shaman father-figure who undermines her efforts. Pushed together to occupy the same landscape, each figure threatens to destabilize and mutate the other.
In Forks at Perfection, the second simulation, the AI protagonist is a dog lead by a golden leash on a mission to capture the last remnants of mankind. The dog, Shiba, searches for a perfect version of human-life through the gangs of roaming canines and fast-moving patches of animated grass to revive a corpse of a 21st century celebrity. Through the driving force of anxiety, the dog and human’s relationship mutate one another. Should the Shiba’s emotional response become overwhelmed by the human, a new Shiba replaces the one on the leash.
In Sunsets the Self, the final simulation of the trilogy, the emissary is a sentient yellow puddle, mutating and growing in an attempt to grow anemone against the destruction of semi-human figures who see the anemone as a threat. The sentient AI puddle learns to possess other biological creatures in its mission to experience incarnate life as something other than a puddle. The figures, equal parts human and shiba, are programmed to demolish any radical anomalies, and thrive on the instinct to destroy the puddle’s anemone. In each simulation, the sculpted chaotic narrative escapes any attempt at fixity and indefinitely continues into stable sequences of chaos.
▲ 《郑曦然》展览现场，伦敦蛇形画廊美术馆, 2018.03.06–05.28 / Installation view of Ian Cheng, Serpentine Galleries, London, 2018.03.06–05.28.
On the use of narrative in his live simulations, Ian Cheng explains, “I think of narrative as a technology—stories are our emotional scaffolding for making meaning out of meaningless reality. On one hand, the universe is meaningless. OK. On the other hand, we are creatures of narrative and need stories to give ourselves situational awareness, a sense of meaning. On the other-other hand, we painfully thrive on moments in our lives when our life script is interrupted by a meaningless accident or circumstance that forces us out of our comforting stories. These moments are when we are forced to invent another story, another script, and expand our portfolio of narratives for dealing with the unknown. I'm trying to use the simulations to hold these metaphysical primitives together.”
As with much of his practice, the Emissaries trilogy was heavily influenced by Cheng’s background in cognitive science, as well as an interest in the “bicameral mind,” a hypothesis proposed in 1976 by the American psychologist Julian Jaynes. Quite controversially, though still debated, Jaynes proposed that early humans did not live in a state of conscious self-awareness, but rather lived in a perpetual present, without self-reflexive cognitive abilities. Jaynes also proposed that, until roughly 3,000 years ago, the human mind functioned on a ‘bicameral’ system, meaning that the left hemisphere and right hemisphere of the brain functioned independently of one another. Jaynes hypothesized that the left hemisphere, which drove physical action, responded without awareness to the rational commands ‘heard’ in the form of auditory hallucinations from the right hemisphere of the brain. When reacting to moments of stress, these authoritarian voices, which may have been interpreted as a god or a spirit, offered commands for social behavior. It wasn’t until the development of abstract linguistic metaphor, and subsequently narrative-thought, in the face of a complex changing world that Jaynes believed that humans developed the self-awareness and self-reflexivity to evolve out of their Bicameral biology.
▲ 《使者》展览现场，柏林朱莉亚·斯托切克收藏馆, 2018.04.27–07.01 / Installation view of Emissaries, Julia Stoschek Collection, Berlin, 2018.04.27–07.01.
Much like Jayne’s theory of cognitive development, Emissaries hypothesizes evolution and behavioral patterns, but uniquely does so using calculated algorithmic manipulations of computer programs. Cheng’s live-simulations often give visual form to the cognitive dissonance and rupture of entities becoming self-aware, and further explores the group dynamics and ritual behaviors that have always been present in human societies. For Cheng, technology and simulation thus become tools for the historical excavation of the human psyche.
▲ 《BOB（信仰之袋）》BOB, 2018, 人工智能创造的动画生物 Artificial lifeform; 尺寸可变 Dimensions variable.
BOB
Using Emissaries as a point of departure, Cheng assembled and led a technical team who created Bag of Beliefs (BOB), an animated being created with Artificial Intelligence (AI), anchored in technology but who constantly perceives, senses and feels, continuously learning and evolving based on self-driven interpretative sensations and interactions with the viewer. BOB’s existence is highly subjective; the hard-coded software parameters that Cheng employs in each BOB are not intended to predict one individualistic agency, but rather initiate conditions that allow misbehavior, prejudice and personality that occur outside of the artist’s authorship. For Cheng’s recent Serpentine exhibition, viewers interacted with the live animation through a “BOB Device,”a smartphone that has the ability to shape the creature’s overall evolution and development by tracking and ultimately memorizing the actions of gallery visitors. As an independent sentient-like being, BOB has the ability to perceive visitors to its world, judging for itself whether or not it wants to engage and interact. As the animation programs itself, the action can be viewed collectively via live stream LED, or interactively with the use of a handheld device. With BOB, Cheng pushes the boundaries of artificial intelligence through his development of an AI entity that ultimately demonstrates technologies’ ability to think for itself.
▲ 《神踞之下的使者》Emissary in the Squat of Gods, 2015, 现场实时模拟、有声 Live simulation, sound; 无限持续时间 Infinite duration.
The “neurological gym” that Cheng creates through his practice is in service of his attempt to progress consciousness, whether AI or human in nature. Cheng explains, “For me, art is like an exploit or hack on our cognition. Art can’t change the world, but it can invent and hold new perceptions. It can induce mutant outgrowths in the mind. From this perspective, art is not a thing. It is more like an interface, a stimulus or irritant, for rehearsing new neural activation patterns.” For Cheng, simulation is both a tool and a product of the human evolutionary process, ultimately assisting in the complex, humanist exploration of the human psyche.
About the Artist
Ian Cheng has been the subject of solo exhibitions at Julia Stoscheck Foundation, Berlin (2018); The Serpentine Galleries, London (2018); MoMA PS1, New York (2017); Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh (2017); Migros Museum, Zurich (2016); Triennale di Milano (2014); among others. His work has been included in group exhibitions at the Louisiana Museum, Copenhagen (2017); Yokohama Triennale (2017); Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C. (2016); the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2016); Taipei Biennial (2014); 12th Biennale de Lyon (2013); and Sculpture Center (2012). Cheng holds an MFA from Columbia University (2009) and a dual BA in Cognitive Science and Art Practice from the University of California, Berkeley (2006).
格莱斯顿画廊（Gladstone Gallery）由芭芭拉·格莱斯顿女士（Barbara Gladstone）于1980年在纽约曼哈顿创办，目前在纽约和布鲁塞尔有四家分部。画廊代理将近六十位著名在世和已故的艺术家。
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