Esplanade Presents

Visual Arts

the infinite-state machine is weathered

Syahrul Anuar (Singapore)

4 Oct 2024 – 5 Jan 2025

All Day

Esplanade Mall Level 3 Community Wall

Free
the infinite-state machine is weathered, Syahrul Anuar, 2024. Image courtesy of the artist.
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Synopsis

For millennia, man has endeavoured to understand and predict the weather. As forecasting methods improve with technology, we gradually lose embodied knowledge, relying more on data and systems to navigate climatic phenomena. Syahrul Anuar delves into ideas of value and myth-making that surround our evolving relationship with the abstract phenomenon of weather. Through three bodies of process-driven works, he aims to re-configure and re-evaluate this complex relationship. In what he terms an “infinite-state machine”, artworks extract live data about the weather to produce an infinite series of unpredictable states or outcomes. Various agents in this ecosystem predict climatic patterns, commoditise weather as assets and trade weather derivatives. Actual data is presented alongside fictional narratives or commentaries, blurring the boundaries between fact and fiction, lived reality and digital realms.

 

Syahrul considers our present-day preoccupation with using technology to decipher the world around us similar to ancient practices of interpreting weather through mystical rituals and folklore. This taps on the fundamental human desire to understand and distil value from the world around us. the infinite-state machine is weathered is a reflection on our complicity in shaping the narratives surrounding our environment and the universe.

Language: English
Things to Note:
Accessibility Advisory: We provide a range of access services and relaxed performances for patrons with access needs. For wheelchair-accessible seats, please call Esplanade Customer Experience at 6828 8377 for assistance. Concessions for Persons With Disabilities (PWDs) and up to one accompanying companion are available. | View our accessibility guide
Artist Information

Syahrul Anuar

Intrigued by the narratives and histories of the Malay World, the research-led practice of Syahrul Anuar (b.1995, Singapore) explores the idea of merantau (migration), specifically the intricate relationship between human movements and our surrounding environments. Engaging with mediums like photography, artificial intelligence, machine learning and computer graphics, Syahrul’s works interrogate fact and fiction, past and present. He was the recipient for the Kwek Leng Joo Prize of Excellence in Photography 2021 and has exhibited his works in Singapore, China and the Netherlands.

Date & Time

4 Oct 2024 – 5 Jan 2025

Esplanade Mall Level 3 Community Wall
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