hyper.data-N°2

Text論述

A set of two pieces: hyper.data-N°2a[Diagram], hyper.data-N°2b[Hex Binary-raw data]

At 14:46 Tokyo time on March 11, 2011 — the instant the Tōhoku earthquake struck — more than 1,100 observation stations across Japan registered the same shock. hyper.data-N°2a[Diagram] arranges these records — station name, intensity, seismic waveform — into a single two-dimensional chart, laid out along the axes of time and distance from the epicenter: a single instant, unfolded into more than 1,100 signals, then compressed back onto one plane. That plane carries an immense volume of data; it carries, too, as many messages transcribed from the energy of the earth. Here, the disaster takes on a legible shape.

hyper.data-N°2b[Hex Binary-raw data] peels this same body of data back one layer further, presenting it as raw hexadecimal code. The station names, intensities, and waveforms still discernible in the diagram withdraw here into uninterpreted encoding — the content unchanged; only the mode of reading has changed. And with that shift, we are moved from the sensory world of images and lived reality toward the rational order of program data and the virtual world behind them.

Surface and substrate to one another, the two works hold a single instant in two states: one within the threshold of human recognition, the other beyond it. What we call figurative and what we call abstract differ only in viewpoint and in processing — and before raw data such as this, sensory cognition, and the very sense that a world exists, prove to be nothing more than an interface laid over it.

With the support of the National Culture and Arts Foundation, Taiwan.

作品共兩組件：hyper.data-N°2a[Diagram], hyper.data-N°2b[Hex Binary-raw data]

2011年3月11日，東京時間14時46分，東北強震發生的瞬間，日本全境一千一百多個觀測站記錄下同一場撼動。《hyper.data-N°2a[Diagram]》以時間與震央距離為軸，將這一千一百多筆資料——站名、強度與地震波形——編排進單一的二維圖表：同一個瞬間，被展開為一千一百多道訊號，又被壓縮進同一個平面。這個平面承載著龐大的資料，也承載著一千一百多道由大地能量轉寫而成的訊息；災難在此獲得了一個可讀的形狀。

《hyper.data-N°2b[Hex Binary-raw data]》則將同一批資料向下剝離一層，以電腦十六進位編碼（Hex Binary）的原始資料形式呈現。圖表中尚可辨識的站名、強度與波形，在此退回為未經詮釋的編碼——內容未曾改變，改變的只是讀取的方式。我們也隨之從感性的圖像與現實世界，被推向其背後理性的程式資料與虛擬世界。

兩者互為表裡，讓同一個瞬間以兩種狀態存在：一種落在人所能辨識的界限之內，一種在界限之外。所謂具象與抽象，不過是視角與處理方式的差異；而面對這些原始資料，感官的認知與世界的存在感，終究只是覆於其上的一層介面。

本作品獲臺灣國家文化藝術基金會贊助。