Synthetic Eros / Synthetic Errors

A white rendered surface folded into soft peaks and troughs, lit from above — *Synthetic Eros — Synthetic Errors*, 2019 — the ECG signal as a surface, in perspective. Courtesy of the artist

Year: 2019
Medium: Two C-Prints
Signal: Electrocardiography (ECG); in the next iteration, electrodermal activity (EDA)
Exhibited: Data Loam: Sometimes Hard, Usually Soft — Royal College of Art and die Angewandte, Vienna, 2019
Published: Data Loam: Sometimes Hard, Usually Soft, de Gruyter

In Synthetic Eros — Synthetic Errors, data is extracted from an electrocardiography sensor (ECG), used in measurements of heartbeat rate, and placed in the virtual three-dimensional space, performing a translation from the physical into the mathematical world. The title of this work is the result of another translation error: when the work was invited to an exhibition, the original title Synthetic Eros, foregrounding the theme of biosignals, was transmitted by phone to Professor Golding who understood the title as Synthetic Errors. Now, the work bears the double title, embodying the plurality of the work in the title itself. Those vertices, still zero-dimensional, are used to algorithmically create one-dimensional lines and then a two-dimensional surface that embodies the signal data on one axis and the time on another. The surface is extruded to produce thickness, allowing the three-dimensional virtual object to be printed or carved.

Depending on the viewpoint (or the viewport in 3D modelling software), the created object oscillates between two and three dimensions. Viewed orthogonally, it obfuscates perspective, hiding its three-dimensionality and thickness. The perspective view suggests a third dimension and the volume is projected on a two-dimensional screen surface. These oscillations, better imagined as a viscous, fractal fluidity between dimensions, pinpoint to the pharmacology of 3D print itself, both as an image and as a print. The translation that happens is an ana-material process, where the sculptures are both “here” and “not-here” in vertiginous translations from physical phenomena into digital matter and then again into physical materiality.

A white rendered surface, viewed from a lower angle so the folds read as ridges — The same surface, turned. Courtesy of the artist

Orthogonal views of the sculptures from above are printed on metallic paper (oxymoronic paring here expresses photography’s secret longing for materiality and thickness of the signifier), rendered into photographs and thus discursively belonging to photography. Three-dimensional digital models harbour another oscillation entailed in the materialising process. Their coming into the physical world in the form of 3D printing, an additive process, suggests a kinship closer to photography or printing than sculpture. When they materially emerge from the printer in foam, wood or metal, these sculptures create an ontological bond to the sculptural process and its objecthood.

A white rendered surface seen close, its thickness visible at the cut edge — The extruded edge, where the surface becomes an object. Courtesy of the artist

While the first two figures somehow point to fluidity of the work within its shape and between its expression in different dimensions and so tend towards the first part of the title, the last figure reveals an essential aspect in this investigation, errors, and thus vindicates the addition of second part of the title. Only after synchronising the sensor capturing the heartbeat could its well-known representation of the heartbeat signal emerge, and just like the negative image destroys the latent one, here, the representational image destroys the erotic one. Only through the error the eros embodied in the first two figures came to light. Without using machine learning or other complex mathematical and statistical methodology, translation errors in data capture broke the “indexical” relationship of the physiological phenomenon with its presupposed mathematical representation.

A white rendered form, its folds tightening toward the centre — Courtesy of the artist

The ECG signal is a recording of a physiological state regardless of its cause. In the next recording session the hearbeat was increased, without the recording and its rendering discerning whether it was due to the physical run, emotional stress or chemical reaction:

A white rendered surface with denser, sharper folds across its width — The second recording session, the heartbeat raised. Courtesy of the artist

A white rendered surface with dense narrow folds — The same session, another view. Courtesy of the artist

In the next iteration of the project the ECG signal was replaced by the EDA signal (measuring galvanic skin response or electrodermal activity) to measure physiological arousal. The signal was used in the parametric design algorithm to fold straight planes into curves, reminiscent of Lucretius' corporial flows forming figures. Placed as a diptych, one below the other, two prints, which topologically are two dimensional, reveal the fractal dimension of the sculpture, that is larger than two dimensions, but still not a 3D object. They convey the embodied (and fractal) excitement through the algorithm that folds the lines into curves and evokes an eroticism of the form.

A white form seen orthogonally from above, reading as a row of vertical bars — Viewed orthogonally, perspective is obfuscated and the object flattens into a print. Courtesy of the artist

A white ribbed form seen from above against a pale ground — Courtesy of the artist

The work was exhibitied in the group show Data Loam: Sometimes Hard, Usually Soft, a collaboration between the Royal College of Art and die Angewandte, 2019 in Vienna, Austria. It was published in the exhibition catalouge with the same name by de Gruyter:

A catalogue page carrying the artist's biography and the work's caption beside a soft grey render — *Data Loam: Sometimes Hard, Usually Soft*, de Gruyter — the work's catalogue entry: *Two C-Prints, 2019*. Courtesy of the artist

A catalogue page showing two framed prints hung one above the other, the upper white and ribbed, the lower a black organic form — The diptych installed, one print below the other. Courtesy of the artist

A catalogue page laying out four photographic details of the prints — Catalogue spread. Courtesy of the artist

A catalogue page laying out six photographic details in a grid — Catalogue spread. Courtesy of the artist