Beginning in late 2017, the demolition of the Netherland’s Central Bureau of Statistics office created an extreme type of slow cinema for railway passengers traveling between The Hague and Amsterdam. Over the following year, as the building was methodically deconstructed from the top down, I visited the site each month to document the gradual erosion. Using a drone and a digital mapping process, photogrammetry, I created an archive of virtual 3D models.
As the building’s architecture and its inevitable collapse were reminiscent of J.G. Ballard’s 1975 High Rise, I further sought to accompany this scene with the voice of a machine learning system trained on the complete corpus of Ballard’s writing. This recurrent neural network generates texts that describe the materials, invisible bodies, and possible narratives residing within the broken grounds of the building.
The resulting installation combines video, neon lighting, and the voice of the machine learning system. It debuted at the 2018 Modern Body Festival in The Hague’s Theater de Nieuwe Regentes, a former swimming pool built in the 1920’s.
In 2018 the project was reinstalled for the exhibition Anamorphic Waves in a former victorian era factory in Southwark, London. Again, an array neon lights are choreographed to activate the space at certain times, to draw one out from the space of the screen back in to the physical, concrete architecture of the gallery.
Modern Body Festival
Alien Bodies
September 2018
The Hague, Netherlands
Noemata
One/Off Moving Image Festival
February 2019
Valencia, Spain & Gol, Norway
Ugly Duck
Anamorphic Waves
April 2019
London, UK
Fracto Film Encounter
Through a Glass, Darkly
May 2019
Berlin, Germany
Politics of the Machines
Art/Conflict
June 2019
Beirut, Lebanon
FILE Festival
20 Years of Art & Technology
June 2019
São Paulo, Brazil
Computer Arts Society
Royal College of Art
Event 2
July 2019
Kensington, UK
Besides the Screen
September 2019
Vítoria, Brazil
Computer Arts Society
Victoria & Albert Museum
Event 2
September 2019
London, UK
Institute of Network Cultures
Video Vortex XII
September 2019
Valletta, Malta
The London Group
In the Dark, Even Darker
January 2020
London, UK
Highlight Festival Delft
February 2020
Delft, Netherlands
Bergen Senter for Elektronisk Kunst
Latent City
October 2020
Bergen, Norway
ISEA 2020
Why Sentience?
October 2020
Montreal, Canada
Taiwan Contemporary Culture Lab
Minimal Input Media Art Festival
July 2022
Taipei, Taiwan
Commissioned by Modern Body Festival
Google Artists + Machine Intelligence Focused Research Award
Creative Industry Fund NL
Stimuleringsfonds Digital Culture Grant
Creative Industry Fund NL
Stimuleringsfonds Space for Talent Grant
Stroom Den Haag
Spot Grant
FIBER x WAAG Futurelab
Terra Fiction Lab
Research and Workshop Program
Made possible by DXARTS - The University of Washington Department of Digital Arts & Experimental Media
Video Vortex XII
Institute of Network Cultures
September 2019
Valletta, Malta
Politics of the Machines
Art/Conflict
June 2019
Beirut, Lebanon
Deep City: Climate Change, Democracy and the Digital
Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
March 2021
Lausanne, Switzerland
Coding
Maxwell Forbes (US)
Yukun Zhu (CN/US)
Voice
Kevin Walton (UK/NL)
Curation
Stelios Manousakis (NL/GR)
Stephanie Pan (NL/US)
Rice, Tivon, 2019. "Neural Narratives: Collaborating with Machines, Ghosts, and Empty Architecture." New Urban Conditions, edited by Zolotev, Timur, Moscow: Strelka Institute for Media, Architecture and
Design,
Rice, Tivon. 2019. "Environment Built for Absence". FILE 2019: 20 Anos de FILE, 20 Anos de Arte e Technologia, edited by Baretto, R., Perissinotto, P., 155. São Paulo: FILE
Rice, Tivon. 2019. "Environment Built for Absence". Video Vortex XII, 43. Amsterdam: Institute of Network Cultures
Rice, Tivon. 2019. "Environment Built for Absence". Besides the Screen: Inteligências Gráficas & Ficções Algorítmicas, edited by Menotti, Gabriel 44. Sāo Paulo: Besides the Screen
Rice, Tivon. 2020. "Environment Built for Absence".
ISEA 2020: Catalog of the 26th International Symposium on
Electronic Art, edited by Vargas, Erandy, 55. Montreal: ISEA International
Rice, Tivon. 2020. "Environment Built for Absence". Proceedings of the 8th Conference on Computation, Communication, Aesthetics, & X, edited by Carvalhais, M., Verdicchio, M., Ribas, L., & Rangel, A, 326-329. Porto: University of Porto
Yen, Wang-Yun. 2022. "Complex Images & Data Infrastructure: An Observation of Global Media Art Festivals." Voices of Photography, 31:48-49
Rice, Tivon. 2023. "Narrativas Neuronales: Colaborar con Máquinas, Fantasmas y Arquitectura Vacía." Transmedialidad: Discursos Re-Situados Sobre la Era Digital, edited by A., Pizarro, F., Montgomery, V., Maureira, D. 46-54. Santiago: DEM
