SMU Libraries is pleased to present 𝚊𝚗 𝚊𝚛𝚛𝚊𝚗𝚐𝚎𝚖𝚎𝚗𝚝 𝚘𝚏/𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚛𝚊𝚗𝚍𝚘𝚖 𝚠𝚘𝚛𝚍𝚜, a solo exhibition by jo+kapi. The exhibition concludes their artist residency with the Libraries from August to December 2024, during which they furthered their research and artistic collaboration with machine intelligences, delving deeper into issues such as AI-authored art, proof of personhood, and generative systems.

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION

In the age of predictive text and machine-generated fluency, language is beginning to feel unstable. Scraped, clustered, tokenized, and recombined at scale, words are no longer chosen so much as they are predicted. Meaning starts to feel hollow, and uncertainty creeps in. 𝚊𝚗 𝚊𝚛𝚛𝚊𝚗𝚐𝚎𝚖𝚎𝚗𝚝 𝚘𝚏/𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚛𝚊𝚗𝚍𝚘𝚖 𝚠𝚘𝚛𝚍𝚜 explores this shifting terrain, where language resists being fixed and meaning becomes increasingly difficult to hold onto.

At the center is 𝐄𝐧𝐳𝐲𝐦𝐞 𝟐.𝟎, the second major iteration of an ongoing series that began in 2022. Where Enzyme 1.0 digested images, 2.0 turns its attention to language — specifically to the spaces between words: the pauses, substitutions, and choices we make when we phrase or rephrase. The system consumes an artist’s manifesto word by word, breaking it down into characters and tokens. Some fragments are lost entirely, while others return altered, hallucinated by the very system that erased them. The result is an interface for loss: slow, recursive, and partial.

This inquiry extends beyond the central installation. Surrounding the work is a growing archive of materials that shaped its development: books, speculative texts, handwritten notes, and references such as The Library of Babel and The World’s First Collaborative Sentence. These fragments offer context, texture, and entry points into the broader questions posed by this investigation.

Together, these elements form a system in flux. In this arrangement of and for random words, language is not fixed or constrained. It moves, breaks, and reforms. Meaning is shaped as much by silence and omission as by expression. The exhibition offers no stable message. Instead, it invites visitors to reflect on how language behaves when it begins to slip — and to notice what flickers into coherence, if only for a moment.

EXHIBITION DETAILS

Opening: 4 Apr, Fri, 7pm-10pm
Dates: 5 Apr - 13 Apr 2025
Venue: SMU de Suantio Gallery, 90 Stamford Road, Singapore 178903
Hours: Mon-Sun, 12pm-8pm

PROGRAMME

Artist talk
REGISTER HERE

Date: 5 Apr, Sat
Time: 2pm-3.30pm
Venue: SMU de Suantio Gallery

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

jo+kapi is a creative collaboration between media artists and creative technologists Jo Ho and Kapilan Naidu. Founded in 2021, the Singapore-based collective creates and curates interactive experiences and media art exhibitions centred around the duo’s shared interests in generative art, artificial intelligence and the transforming modes of creating and consuming digital art in the 21st century.