Shi Zheng: Slothful Alphaville
Written by Long Xingru
Two years ago, Shi Zheng posted an image of a crowded "studio desk" on Instagram, featuring two stacked MacBook Pros with another Mac Pro in the corner of the desk, hidden behind two upright LaCie hard drives, and three additional portable disks piled under the monitor. An empty swivel chair not only hinted at the absence of its owner but also increasingly highlighted the presence of these various devices on the desk. This image received a comment from artist Mary Patten on Instagram: "from the film set of Alphaville, the re-make"
Shi Zheng, From the Film Set of Alphaville, 2020, photography, 120 x 160 cm
Hovering at the Convergence of Entrances and Exits #2, 2021, video installation, 4'25"
If we conceive of a set as a kind of artificially constructed environment that allows for various performances to unfold, the exhibition "Levitation" at the Sifang Art Museum featuring Shi Zheng's project “Slothful Machine" resembles such a set. In Shi Zheng's own words, "Films are shot in a place called ‘the set,’ but ‘the set’ is not a real location." In preparing for this exhibition, Shi Zheng presented an installation plan that consisted almost exclusively of various display devices: surveillance screens, holographic fans capable of imaging, projectors, screens, and then larger screens. Beginning with the descending grand steps of the exhibition hall, this "set" gradually operates through the spatial structure extending into the depths below, mediated by different display media.
Monroe, 2018
After passing through a vast escalator sliding against a blue-screen void background in Monroe, visitors encounter an array of screens scattered across large steps in Hovering at the Convergence of Entrances and Exits that broadcast, from a perspective akin to that of a drone, the intricate network of overpasses and highways within an unnamed city. Suspended above these steps in Free Fall Study III is a white facial mask whose image constantly morphs. A high-speed rotating holographic fan occasionally draws its afterimage. Simultaneously, a program continuously evaluates to what extent this "face" conforms to its understanding of human features, assigning values ranging from 0 to 1 in an ethereal void.
HOVERING AT THE CONVERGENCE OF ENTRANCES AND EXITS#2，2021
Free Fall Study III，2020
Descending further, visitors find themselves within a typical daily landscape rendered by machines; however, events that could not yet occur in the physical world subtly unfold here: a New York Times newspaper lying on a wooden table bathes in sunlight, its content slowly blurring and re-emerging, scarcely settling into any moment long enough to be focused upon (Frosty Morning). In this work, after studying six years of The New York Times data, a neural network begins to autonomously generate or "predict" non-existent versions. To the machine's eye, this data from The New York Times consists merely of arrays of pixel values; in other words, what it has learned is a visual style, not the textual content. Consequently, this sunlit New York Times can never be truly read—it is strikingly similar, yet not equivalent. At the exhibition's end, everyone flows into a blue space, where the visuals originate from the artist’s simulation of "the contours of the sea" (Visioning Versioning).
"Slouthful Machine", installation view, Sifang Art Museum, 2022
Frosty Morning (Daily #1), 2021
Visioning Versioning I，2019
In the film Alphaville, a supercomputer named "Alpha 60" — portrayed by a Philips fan used for assembling light bulbs — exerts control over the entire city, depicting a profoundly antagonistic human-machine relationship in a world where poetic sensibility is suffocated by computational supremacy. If we were to rewind from the "deep sea" at the end of the exhibition hall to its central area, we would encounter a non-luminous (unpowered) medium, a digital image titled From the Film Set of Alphaville. This image leaves an indelible impression of "machine presence with human fate unknown," a sentiment that subtly pervades the scene of the “Slothful Machine" — the chairs are empty, the screens are dark, yet the flickering of the hard drive light reveals the underlying operation of the machine. This image is, in fact, a digital replica of the artist’s own studio; everything in the exhibition hall — the cars circling the overpass, the newspaper that appears and disappears on the table, the floating face mask, and the surrounding blue water — is rendered by this not visibly active but operational machine. It can be challenging to determine which truly constitutes the "set": the constructed world of architecture, furnishings, and nature viewed on the screens in the exhibition, or the lines of code executed by the unnamed machine within the image.
From the Film Set of Alphaville, 2020
In the article Myth of Simulation, Björn Schembera from the Institute of Analytical and Numerical Simulation Studies at Stuttgart delineates several prevailing myths or mystifications associated with "simulation," particularly computer simulations. One notable myth he identifies is our tendency to consider simulations as occurring entirely within a "virtual space." "Although we may perceive supercomputers as the tangible substrate and visible interface of experimental apparatus, it appears that computer simulations operate solely within cyberspace. This leads to the myth that simulations are a unique form of experimentation taking place in a virtual space." While this statement primarily addresses scientific experiments conducted through simulations, it incisively highlights the carefully constructed cognitive barrier between us and "simulation" (as Schembera also notes the distinction between "hypotheses" and "facts" in his text) — suggesting that as long as everything in a "simulation" transpires within the confines of the screen's "interior" space, we are able to maintain a safe distance from it.
However, the notion of the "Slothful Machine" actually prompts a reevaluation of the "myths of simulation"—the relationship between us and the simulated environment might be more complex and ambiguous than imagined. It could be rife with permeable voids, through which we embed our real-world experiences and perceptions into the virtual models of our surroundings. This is exemplified by the autonomously operating escalator of Monroe Station displayed on the gallery screen, which originates from the artist's personal memories during their stay in the United States. It is within such a chaotic relationship that the role of the machine can be reconsidered.
"Slouthful Machine", installation view, Sifang Art Museum, 2022
If we revisit the film "Alphaville," it is possible to discern another nuanced aspect behind its dystopian technological rhetoric — "Alphaville" is essentially Paris. Filmed in Paris, its psychedelic "interstellar" quality derives from cinematic techniques. From another perspective, "Alphaville" also functions as a simulation of Paris, albeit one infused with the imagined experience of machines. In his solo exhibition "Sandbox," the artist Shi Zheng offers an interpretation of the "sandbox" concept: "In my works, it functions like a glass container through which the audience can see the simulated space created in the artwork, and also reflect on reality through the mirrored glass." Thus, "simulation" appears no longer to belong exclusively to a world that seems to lack a material foundation, existing only in the flicker of cathode ray tubes or the dots of projected light.
"Sandbox", installation view, AIKE, 2021
In the writings of philosopher Manuel DeLanda, "simulation" even becomes a philosophical tool that helps in visualizing various thought experiments by continuously configuring environmental data (Philosophy and Simulation, Manuel DeLanda). Shi Zheng notes that his creative process often oscillates between control and relinquishment ("controlled delegating"), exemplified in Hovering at the Convergence of Entrances and Exits where autonomous vehicles follow a high-speed route and traffic regulations designed by the artist, yet where these vehicles ultimately go and how they navigate is autonomously determined by the program over time—this in fact resonates with the current real-world trend where machines are increasingly given more autonomy: machines participate in observing, "understanding," analyzing, and predicting the world, much of these actions are performed through "vision," leading us to share a portion of our visual experience and decision-making with machines.
"Slouthful Machine", installation view, Sifang Art Museum, 2022
In "Slothful Machines,” the component of machine vision within the simulated world is subtly suggested—whether it be the intermediary layer recognized by machines in Free Fall or the newspaper in Frosty Morning that features visual traits of Generative Adversarial Networks. The involvement of these elements transforms the entire "set" from being merely a digital replica of human vision or human experience into a hybrid imbued with both machine vision and machine experience. Thus, just as "Alphaville" is both Paris and its phantom double.
Another subtle aspect of the exhibition is the speed of everything on the screens: the velocity of the elevators, the cars, and the evolving speed of the newspaper images—time seems to flow uniformly here. In fact, to enhance the fluidity of the scenes in Hovering at the Convergence of Entrances and Exits, the artist performed extremely slow recordings within the game Cities: Skylines and later sped them up to a speed that appears normal to the human eye during composition. This uniform sense of speed across different screens suggests a hidden interconnection in the temporal flow of various artworks. The scenes, seemingly discrete and scattered across different corners of the virtual world, appear to be regulated by the same rhythm; "speed" becomes the variable that orchestrates everything in shadows as we navigate through these scenes. This exhibited speed is very slow—such a pace would not be allowed in the efficiency-prioritized setting of "Alphaville." Perhaps the attributive in the exhibition's title gives us a clue to interpreting this sensation of speed: "slothful." A “Slothful Alphaville" seems to reverse the harsh destiny of human-machine opposition, allowing for a slower, more comfortable, and opaque coexistence between humans and machines, occasionally "hovering at the convergence of entrances and exits."
