Chapter 43
The studio had become a makeshift tech outpost. Wires snaked across the floor like vines, connecting computers, sensors, projectors, and several small robotic arms undergoing commissioning. The air was filled with the hum of cooling fans and the distinctive smell of circuit boards, a strange blend of lingering turpentine and rust.
The model data provided by Chen Hui became my new "paint." Working with my hired programmer, Xiao Liu, I translated those abstract mathematical rules into code, attempting to drive the projected light and shadow or the robotic arm's movements, visualizing the "dynamic grammar of form generation." The process was fraught with frustration. A tiny error in the code would cause the projection to become garbled or the robotic arm to twitch. The elegant dynamics I imagined often became rigid or uncontrollable in reality.
Xiao Liu is a quiet young man. When faced with my wild ideas, he would first frown, then silently start typing code until he found a way to implement or disprove them. Most of our communication was done through screen sharing and simple technical terms.
“Here, the feedback delay is too high and the system becomes unstable.”
“Try reducing the parameters of attraction between particles to see if you can produce a sparser clustering pattern.”
“The servo motors in the robotic arm aren’t precise enough to achieve the micron-level vibrations you require.”
This collaborative model is completely different from my interactions with Wang Rui: colder and more direct, but equally efficient. We are like two miners, digging through the digital and physical veins, searching for the elusive light of "grammar."
Occasionally, during a break from debugging, I'd walk to the window and gaze out at the bustling real world. That vast, chaotic "dynamic," driven by countless individual wills, social rules, and physical laws, formed an absurd yet captivating contrast with the simplified "grammar" I was trying to precisely simulate in the studio.
Late one night, after Xiao Liu had finished work, I was alone, staring blankly at the beautifully executed simulation on my screen. Particles moved fluidly, combining and separating, forming beautiful, ever-changing patterns. But it was still just an illusion on the screen, lacking the texture of the physical world.
I stood up in frustration and accidentally knocked over a glass of water in the corner of the workbench. The water spilled over the table and onto a pile of discarded circuit boards.
In my frantic wiping, I picked up a damp circuit board and accidentally brushed my fingers against a few exposed solder joints.
A slight tingling sensation came over me.
I jerked my hand away and looked at the circuit board. The intricate paths of copper wires, the electronic components like a miniature city... the currents coursing through them, following the "grammar" of physics...
A thought struck me like an electric current.
Why do we have to simulate?
Why not just use an existing system that already follows a certain "grammar"?
I rummaged through boxes and drawers, finding old electronic devices—a dead radio, a clock, even a broken router—and dismantled them to reveal the dense circuitry within.
I found a highly sensitive microphone and carefully placed it near a working circuit. The amplifier amplified the faint sound of the current and transmitted it into the headphones - a chaotic, rustling white noise, occasionally interspersed with some regular pulses and hums.
Isn't this sound simply the "dynamics" of the electronics? A kind of underlying "sound of existence" generated by the combined effects of thermal noise, electromagnetic interference, and the components' own vibrations?
I tried to input the real-time electronic noise collected by the microphone into the computer and use the program to perform simple spectrum analysis and real-time visualization.
On the screen, the once smoothly running simulated particles disappeared, replaced by a restless cloud of light dots that shifted in real time with the noise. It wasn't as "beautiful" as a simulation program, but it was more real, more... vivid. This was because it directly reflected the actual physical processes occurring within this tiny circuit.
A great sense of excitement seized me.
I spent the night trying different circuits and different sampling points. Each circuit produced a unique noise pattern, like a unique "electronic fingerprint."
Over the next few days, I became completely absorbed in this "electronic archaeology." I even connected Chen Hui's DNA brooch (after confirming it wouldn't damage it) to microelectrodes, attempting to "listen" to the electrochemical activity of the metal itself. (Of course, I detected almost no signal, but the act itself was full of symbolic meaning.)
Xiao Liu expressed confusion about my new direction, but still faithfully followed my instructions and helped me optimize the data collection and visualization programs.
Ultimately, I settled on a simple passive circuit consisting of a few resistors and capacitors. The noise it produced was relatively stable, with a clear spectral signature. I projected the real-time noise data onto a high-lumen projector, projecting it onto a blank wall in my studio.
Turn off all lights.
In the darkness, only the light and shadow on the wall pulsated and shifted with the invisible current. It didn't resemble any concrete image, merely an abstract field that constantly generated and dissipated. But if you stared long enough, you could almost "see" the current flowing and "hear" the whispers of electrons.
It is no longer an image "created" by me, but a real-time, visual "manifestation" of the state of a physical system itself.
I named it: "Field I - Circuit".
I invited Wang Rui to come and see it. He stood in the darkness, staring at the patch of light for a long time, then turned to me, his eyes shining. "This is... a visualization of the system's entropy increase! So interesting! Have you ever tried changing the circuit's temperature? Or applying an external electromagnetic field? See how the graph changes?"
His reaction was entirely scientific, but it precisely pointed out the core of this work - it is about the process, about the response of the system to the environment, rather than a static result.
I also sent the video to Chen Hui. After watching it, she was silent for a moment and said, "It's crude, but the direction is right. It's closer to the essence than simulation. We can consider introducing a feedback mechanism so that changes in the image can in turn affect the circuit itself, forming a closed loop."
Her advice pushed me to a deeper level again.
After completing "Site I," I had no plans to show it publicly. It was more of a prototype, a proof of concept. But it held immense significance for me. It marked a shift from "shaping matter" to "intervening in systems," from pursuing a final "object" to presenting an ongoing "process."
Just as I was immersed in this new exploration, Assistant Lin arrived with a piece of news. The mysterious gallery to which I had previously sent the DNA brooch had finally responded—not by email or phone, but with a paper invitation.
The invitation was minimalist, made of pure black cardstock with only a few words printed in silver font:
"We sincerely invite Mr. Zhang Chenzhi
Participated in the international artist residency program "Encoding/Decoding: Artistic Narratives in the Postbiological Era"
Location: Reykjavik, Iceland
Time: Three months
The signature is the name of the gallery and the logo of an Icelandic Aurora Research Institute.
Iceland. Aurora. Postbiology.
These words combined together are like a key, precisely inserting into the keyhole of my current thinking.
Iceland, a land of extreme natural environments and unique geomagnetic activity, is itself a vast field imbued with a primordial "grammar." The aurora borealis, the most spectacular dynamic manifestation of the interaction between the solar wind and the Earth's magnetic field, is also a phenomenon closely intertwined with my recent reflections on life, information, and technology.
This invitation letter no longer seems like a casual test, but more like a carefully calculated and tailor-made call.
I looked at the invitation letter, and then at the light and shadow of "Site I" on my work wall, which was still pulsating silently.
The next "field" seems to be in the distant Arctic Circle, waiting for my intervention.
This time, what I will face is no longer a small circuit in the studio, but the grand grammar of the entire planet and even the solar system.
I picked up the pen and slowly drew a check mark on the invitation receipt.
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