Input/Output - Studio 3
Hu Jieming
胡介鸣
Production date
2015
Object Detail
Media
oil on canvas
Measurements
149.5 x 130 cm
Notes
For the 2015 (and ongoing) Input/Output series of paintings, Hu Jieming developed his own computer program. In locations of personal or cultural significance (including his studio, and Shanghai’s famous People’s Park) he takes multiple photographs. Once the images are scanned into the computer, the software makes calibrations and changes. Hu then paints the image that the computer has produced, in an expressionist idiom of painterly brush marks and vivid non-representational colour. He photographs the painting, scans it into the computer, and repeats the process, again and again: the original image becomes more and more abstract. Hu describes this series as a ‘collaboration’ between artist and computer. He is thinking about systems and language –– the language of computer coding and the language of art education –– how ideas are communicated, and how they are controlled and manipulated. Acutely aware of the diminishing possibilities for debate and dissent in a highly regulated society, Hu Jieming is interested in alternative versions of history.
In Input/Output: Studio 2 and Input/Output: Studio 3 (2015), assumptions about the conventions that govern artists painting their workspaces are thrown into question when we understand Hu’s production process: these images have been essentially generated by a computer, rather than by aesthetic or conceptual decisions made by the artist. The coding controls the composition, the colour relationships, and every aspect of the work. Input/Output: People’s Park 3 (2015) emanates from Hu Jieming’s interest in historical narratives. In the nineteenth century, People’s Park was the racecourse in Shanghai’s foreign-controlled Concession district. Its flagpole, made from the mast of a Chinese warship captured by the British and Americans, represented a shameful defeat. In more recent times the park has been a focus of protests and demonstrations. In the winter of 1986-87 thousands of students protested there before marching to The Bund, where they demanded democratic reform. Again, during the Tiananmen demonstrations of 1989, tens of thousands gathered there in solidarity with the protestors in Beijing.
In Input/Output: Studio 2 and Input/Output: Studio 3 (2015), assumptions about the conventions that govern artists painting their workspaces are thrown into question when we understand Hu’s production process: these images have been essentially generated by a computer, rather than by aesthetic or conceptual decisions made by the artist. The coding controls the composition, the colour relationships, and every aspect of the work. Input/Output: People’s Park 3 (2015) emanates from Hu Jieming’s interest in historical narratives. In the nineteenth century, People’s Park was the racecourse in Shanghai’s foreign-controlled Concession district. Its flagpole, made from the mast of a Chinese warship captured by the British and Americans, represented a shameful defeat. In more recent times the park has been a focus of protests and demonstrations. In the winter of 1986-87 thousands of students protested there before marching to The Bund, where they demanded democratic reform. Again, during the Tiananmen demonstrations of 1989, tens of thousands gathered there in solidarity with the protestors in Beijing.
Accession number
2015.317