VITRINE
EXHIBITION SERIES
FEB 01 – MAR 01, 2024
Tansy Xiao
Circumlocution Machine
Circumlocution Machine includes selected work by multimedia artist Tansy Xiao. The exhibition features a web art project that uses natural language processing (NLP), user-input, and dictionary definitions to explore the political implications of language and translation.
“Facilitated with unconventional sound and found visuals, I create theatrical installations with non-linear narratives—both physically and virtually. My work often incorporates arbitrary objects, historical images, field recordings, as well as live and documented performances that often extend beyond the fourth wall. As an immigrant and a flâneur who traveled extensively in different continents prior to my relocation to New York, the composition of those multidimensional and cross-disciplinary projects epitomizes my remembrance of the impacts of globalization, both its glories and its misdeeds. Poetry is my mother tongue. I started writing poetry at age 8 and it had been the subtext of my art practice ever since. My work substantiates the ultimate inadequacy of language, as well the instinctive power embedded in lingual and non-lingual phonemes. Mundane sounds are deconstructed in juxtaposition with maximalist video collage, synthesizing interactive or spectating experiences during which the audience involuntarily situates themselves in the ongoing metaphor of a decentralized world.” — Tansy Xiao
Tansy Xiao is an artist, curator and writer based in New York. Xiao creates theatrical installations with non-linear narratives that often extend beyond the fourth wall. Her work explores the immense power and inherent inadequacy of language through the assemblage of stochastic audio and recontextualized objects. She finds solace in the unknown, ludicrousness in the authorities, and absurdity in the geopolitical demarcations that separate and differentiate people. Xiao’s work has been shown at Queens Museum, New Media Caucus, Piksel Festival, Sound Scene at Hirshhorn Museum, Torrance Art Museum, NARS Foundation, HASTAC Conference, UKAI Projects, The American Society for Theatre Research, University of Porto, Osaka University of Art, Taipei Digital Arts Festival, WIP Arts and Technology Festival, New Adventures in Sound Art, Pelham Art Center, among others. She has received grants and support from NYSCA Electronic Media & Film | Wave Farm, Brooklyn Arts Council, Foundation for Contemporary Arts and Harvestworks Digital Media Arts Center.
It is recommended to use it to converse with a friend or an alter ego.
Artist’s Statement About the Work
The genesis of this project was the Circumlocution Machine, a basic web-based program that automatically replaces all the nouns in user-input content with the dictionary definitions of the nouns then uttering it back out. It uses a natural language processing (NLP) algorithm to analyze a user's input sentence, then "translates" it to redundant nonsense, creating a convoluted and nonsensical version that satirizes the use of evasive language.
Then it evolved into the Circumlocution Chamber—a networked chatroom version of the program that actively invites the viewers to engage in real-time conversations via the algorithm. Similar to its predecessor, this interactive program substitutes nouns in user input sentences with their dictionary definitions and then reads them aloud using randomly assigned synthetic voices, as a means to deliberately obscuring the identities of individual users and centering the language itself. Moreover, specific keywords within these sentences trigger sonic visual events within the virtual space. As a consequence, viewers collaboratively construct a non-linear virtual theater experience.
As an anti-communication tool, this virtual space exposes the linguistic strategies employed by politicians and authority figures to evade addressing the core subject matter. The floating objects in the space include a totalitarian monument, a space structure, a royal seat, a military vehicle, and numerous seeds of the rubber tree, a vegetation that played a significant role in the global colonialism during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, leading to economic exploitation, land appropriation and forced labor. Whenever the objects of power collide, they emit shushing sounds, compelling the participants to silence themselves. By clicking the "Control" key, the viewer gains temporary control over the floating objects for a span of 15 seconds while generating more rubber tree seeds. Certain keywords will trigger an eruption that unveils a cluster of rocks known as the conflict minerals, denoting minerals that are mined in areas affected by armed conflict and human rights abuses in Central Africa. These minerals are widely used in manufacturing the electronic devices that we use today.