Exhibitions
BANGKOK CITYCITY GALLERY
May 28 - Jul 10, 2022
A Conversation with the Sun. Photo: Apichatpong Weerasethakul
All images courtesy of BANGKOK CITYCITY GALLERY
(Bangkok, May 23, 2022) BANGKOK CITYCITY GALLERY is proud to present A Conversation with the Sun by acclaimed Thai auteur and artist Apichatpong Weerasethakul. Running from May 28 till July 10, 2022, the interdisciplinary project, in collaboration with DuckUnit and Pat Pataranutaporn, manifests Weerasethakul’s long-standing interests in moving images, theatricality, performance, technology and their coalescence.
Interrogating the possibilities of an existence without his personal memories, A Conversation with the Sun draws on selected self-documented footage over several years – the means in which the artist has chosen to record his life since he embarked on filmmaking. Existing as if a personal memory archive, these images together with a published conversations between the artist and Artificial Intelligence (AI) generated cognitive specters of individuals and entities such as Jiddu Krishnamurti, Salvador Dalí, the Sun, and other.
These conversations, generated through GPT-3 – an AI platform that can be used to build conversations – were developed in collaboration with Pat Pataranutaporn, a technologist and researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who explores the intersection of synthetic virtual humans and synthetic biology. Sparked by his contemplations of the Sun as he embarked on long walks amidst nature, Weerasethakul has pushed and guided the AI to generate increasingly coherent and interesting conversations to manifest new fictions.
Installation view: Apichatpong Weerasethakul in collaboration with DuckUnit and Pat Pataranutaporn, A Conversation with the Sun, 2022, Bangkok CityCity Gallery, Bangkok
Apichatpong Weerasethakul (b. 1970, Bangkok, TH)
Apichatpong Weerasethakul grew up in Khon Kaen in north-eastern Thailand. He began making films and short videos in 1994 and completed his first feature in 2000. He has also mounted exhibitions and installations in many countries since 1998. Weerasethakul is recognized as a major international filmmaker and visual artist. His works are characterized by their use of non-linear storytelling, often dealing with themes of memory, loss, identity, desire, and history. His works have won him widespread international recognition and numerous awards, including the Cannes Jury Prize in 2021 for Memoria, his first film shot outside of Thailand. He lives and works in Chiangmai, Thailand.
DuckUnit
DuckUnit was founded in 2005. Its early work included concert stage design and artwork by the company’s founder Wit Pimkanchanapong. With a wide range of interests and a penchant for exploring possibilities of its members, DuckUnit’s design works emanate a sense of experimentation, finding possibilities in relationships among media, from animation to lighting and space, with the main work being concert stage design, stage play design, and performance arts design. DuckUnit is currently led by Ruangrit Santisuk and Pornphan Arayawirasit, who discovered their interest in experimenting with mechanical systems to incorporate them into installation art works, and continue to develop and expand their interests in other fields.
Pat Pataranutaporn
Pat Pataranutaporn is a technologist and researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he explores the intersection of synthetic virtual humans and synthetic biology, specifically at the interface between biological and digital systems. He is currently a Ph.D. candidate in the Fluid Interfaces research group at MIT Media Lab, where he works with his collaborators at NASA, NTT Data, IBM, and Harvard University to examine the future of human-computer integration. His interdisciplinary research ranges from investigating AI-generated characters for learning and well-being, human-AI co-reasoning, wearable lab on the body with programmable bio-digital organ for space exploration, machine learning model to detect linguistic markers related to mental health issues.
A Conversation with the Sun. Photo: Apichatpong Weerasethakul
