Excerpt from ‘Sorry for the Technical Difficulties’
Reconsidering our relationship with technology
By jo+kapi
Over the years, we have republished parts of long-form writing, from catalogue essays to book chapters. This practice will now be formalised in a monthly column. We will continue to be on the lookout for content to share. If you may like to send us texts to consider, please email info@artandmarket.net.
jo+kapi, ‘Sorry for the Technical Difficulties’ (title wall), 2024, digital screens, single-board computers, cables, wires, vinyl stickers. 7.3 x 2.4m. Photo by Colin Wan. Image courtesy of Art Outreach Singapore.
In an age where technology promises precision and perfection, ‘Sorry for the Technical Difficulties’ flips this narrative on its head, celebrating the glitches, malfunctions, and unintended consequences that often derail us from our initial plans. Rather than viewing these hiccups as failures, the artists in this exhibition embrace them—transforming misbehaving systems and unexpected outcomes into compelling works of art.
From ghostly patterns produced by altered displays in Chok Si Xuan’s ‘persistence’, to fragmented 3D-printed forms in Darius Ou’s ‘ASSORT3D’, and even the frustrating beauty of objects caught in endless loops in Tisya Wong’s ‘Void Loop()’, these works turn flaws into opportunities for exploration. Arcaneomorph’s painterly renderings in ‘Killing Time’ and samson’s shader-driven experiments in ‘Vertex and Fragments’ both embrace the unpredictability of their mediums, while Aditi Neti’s ‘translation/negotiation’ navigates the struggle between human intent and machine autonomy, probing whether cultural traditions can be faithfully translated into the language of automation.
As the viewer walks into Art Outreach, they are greeted with an assortment of digital screens, exposed cable wires and a long printed banner, all part of jo+kapi’s work ‘Sorry for the Technical Difficulties (Title Wall)’. This installation is meant to capture the essence of working with technology, embracing the difficulties of consolidating and moving between software, hardware, digital and analogue.
View when entering the main gallery space. From left to right: ‘persistence’ by Chok Si Xuan, a work in ‘Void Loop()’ by Tisya Wong, ‘Killing Time’ by Arcaneomorph, and ‘translation/negotiation’ by Aditi Neti. Photo by Colin Wan. Image courtesy of Art Outreach Singapore.
Tisya Wong, ‘Void Loop()’, 2020, readymade devices, dimensions variable. Photo by Colin Wan. Image courtesy of Art Outreach Singapore.
Moving into the main gallery space, Tisya Wong’s robot vacuum lies confined to a raised lazy susan, while another more non-descript artwork sits atop the counter of the reception desk. These are works from her series called ‘Void Loop()’ examining our relationship with digital and mechanical systems, shifting focus from the physical wear of screens to the habitual cycles that shape our daily lives. ‘Void Loop()’ mirrors our tendency towards a mechanised way of life, drawing parallels from the behaviour of everyday objects and addressing the urgency of breaking from the cycle of our own mechanical monotony.
Chok Si Xuan, ‘persistence’, 2024, installation of phones and their LCD panels, crab jaw clamps, phone chargers, 50 x 20 x 30cm. Photo by Colin Wan. Image courtesy of Art Outreach Singapore.
In a similar vein to Wong’s reframing of daily technological objects, ‘persistence’ by Chok Si Xuan is a series of screen “paintings” inspired by screen burn-ins. Chok’s work refers to the effect of ‘persistence’, whereby the spectral image of previous visuals remains on screen due to the wear and tear on the physical pixels, while still displaying the intended on-screen interface. These “paintings” play with the appearance of faulty pixels to create an image, layering the vignette of a previous screen across an existing display, turning a malfunction into a form of image making, portraying screens and interfaces as a form of objecthood.
samson, ‘Vertex and Fragments’, 2024, interactive web experience on digital screens, custom software, WebGL shaders in GLSL, 2.2 x 1.3m. Photo by Colin Wan. Image courtesy of Art Outreach Singapore.
Towards the right in the middle of the room is a series of screens belonging to ‘Vertex and Fragments’ by samson, an interactive noise generator that explores the infinite realm of generative visuals through the use of GLSL (OpenGL Shading Language) and mathematical noises. The work unfolds as a flat 3D plane that morphs and distorts its structure with each tweak to the noise's parameters, capturing moments of digital spontaneity where mathematical formulae shape a seemingly boundless array of visuals, from soft, undulating waves to jagged edges reminiscent of shattered glass. At its core, the work is an invitation for viewers to discover the beauty of algorithmic noises, uncovering patterns within code-driven randomness.
Arcaneomorph, ‘Killing Time’, 2024, digital artwork, documentation video and moving image clip on digital screens, 1.4 x 1.7 x 0.2m. Photo by Colin Wan. Image courtesy of Art Outreach Singapore.
Arcaneomorph, ‘Killing Time’, 2024, digital artwork, documentation video and moving image clip on digital screens, 1.4 x 1.7 x 0.2m. Photo by Colin Wan. Image courtesy of Art Outreach Singapore.
While ‘Vertex and Fragments’ invites viewers to explore algorithmic noise through real-time adjustments the way the artist does in his own processes, Arcaneomorph’s digital paintings are deliberately sculpted into fantastical compositions. Digital sculptor Arcaneomorph is known for creating grandiose digital paintings of otherworldly subjects. He uses a method that is interesting for digital paintings, by creating the scene and figures in a three-dimensional process first, before rendering them out as flat 2D images. In this piece he explores the concept of “killing time”—both literally and figuratively. He used his free time to craft this artwork, while juggling other commercial projects from his day job, creating a commentary on time's circular nature.
Aditi Neti, ‘translation/negotiation’, 2024, digital installation with automated drawing machine, digital tablet, Arduino + sensors, 55 x 40.5 x 20cm. Photo by Colin Wan. Image courtesy of Art Outreach Singapore.
Arcaneomorph’s work reflects a process that is software-driven but organic in form-making, which contrasts deeply in its process to the spatially adjacent work. Aditi Neti’s ‘translation/negotiation’ explores the creation of the wholly organic and traditionally hand-drawn “Kolam” (a South Indian tradition of drawing patterns at house entrances using chalk or rice flour) that is algorithmically calculated and drawn by a machine. This artwork in Aditi Neti’s series ‘Anatomy of a Rangoli’ explores the inherent struggle between human intent and machine autonomy. An algorithm, through the means of an AxiDraw, attempts to trace a kolam by navigating a grid of dots—or pullis—on a screen. The human observer, through environmental sensors, seeks to influence the kolam’s evolution, introducing a constant flux that dismantles any sense of a fixed or predictable form. The kolam thus emerges as a site of negotiation—a conversation bridging human and machine, tradition and technology, probing whether the essence of cultural forms can truly be translated into the language of automation.
Darius Ou (hyperpress), ‘SLIC3D’, 2021-2022, 3D-printed book, 148 x 105 x 25mm. Photo by Colin Wan. Image courtesy of Art Outreach Singapore.
Last, beyond the wall that stands in the middle of the room are various presentations of Darius Ou’s (hyperpress) 3D-printed explorations into graphic design. Titled ‘ASSORT3D’, this series of 3D-printed objects and installations explores the intersection between object-making and mark-making. On a plinth is ‘SLIC3D’, a fully 3D-printed book that explores and documents the 3D-printing process beyond its immediate use case for rapid prototyping/object manufacturing. Envisioned as TPU loose-leaves in a bound format, ‘SLIC3D’ reimagines pages of a book as slices of a printed object and explores additive printing in place of traditional planographic processes. By manipulating the slicer software’s parameters/settings and physical interventions during the print process, graphics were created using open-source 3D models and the software’s generative support forms.
Darius Ou (hyperpress), ‘Orthogonal Sites (1)’, 2024, 3D-printer and aluminium V-slot extrusions, 464 x 440 x 1392mm. Photo by Colin Wan. Image courtesy of Art Outreach Singapore.
Darius Ou (hyperpress). Left to right: ‘Orthogonal Sites (2)’ ‘Orthogonal Sites (3)’ and ‘Orthogonal Sites (4)’, 2024; ‘SLIC3D’, 2021-2022; ‘CORPUS (Digital)’, 2022-2023. Photo by Colin Wan. Image courtesy of Art Outreach Singapore.
Darius Ou’s second 3D-printed book is ‘CORPUS’, shown in the exhibition as a documentation flip-through video, is a fully 3D printed book exploring the relationships between materiality and mortality, dimensionality and causality; the afterlife of the codex. Entombed within this codex are cross-sectional slices of open-source 3D models of trees, dispossessed of its volume in another dimension (3D), and presented as flat (2D) bodies. The book is filled with lore and images on how 3D printing reconciles with the “death of print”. Along the walls of this corner of the gallery, Darius Ou also presents us with ‘Orthogonal Sites’, a series of installations that reorients 3D-printing onto orthogonal planes of encounter. Featuring an actual 3D-printer printing text while mounted perpendicularly to a wall, the print bed is repurposed into a sign. The 3D-printer is no longer confined within a volumetric function; typography instead of proto’type’.
Kapilan Naidu, one half of jo+kapi, presents Darius Ou’s ‘Orthogonal Sites (2)’. Photo by Colin Wan. Image courtesy of Art Outreach Singapore.
In this exhibition, artists do not simply surrender to technological disruptions—they work with them, negotiating how much control they can exert and when they must let go. Technology becomes more than just a tool; it is a creative partner and active collaborator, pushing back, shaping the process, and influencing the final outcome.
The exhibition challenges us to reconsider our relationship with technology: Are we truly in control of our digital tools, or are they subtly guiding us in unexpected directions? Through these ongoing conversations between artist and machine, failure reveals itself not a setback, but as a step towards discovery. As one artist insightfully put it, failure becomes “productive confusion,” sparking solutions to problems that might not have seemed obvious or been considered otherwise.
‘Sorry for the Technical Difficulties’ invites viewers to find beauty in failure, to question the limits of control, and to celebrate the creativity that emerges when things fail to go according to plan—especially when artists repurpose their tools in inventive and unorthodox ways. In this space, disruptions and irregularities reveal a deeper creative dialogue between artist and machine, where glitches become just as intentional as the code.
This is an excerpt of jo+kapi’s curatorial essay, published on the occasion of ‘Sorry for the Technical Difficulties’. The show is on view from 8 to 17 November 2024 at Art Outreach Singapore.
To read other writings from the Excerpts series, click here.
About the Writer
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 producing and consuming digital art in the 21st century. Their artistic research and works critically engage with the evolving modes of consuming digital art, specifically within the dynamic discourse surrounding this space—including exploring concepts around the ownership of digital art, the seat of creative labour in algorithmically generated art, and the ongoing debates surrounding intellectual property and authorship in AI-generated artworks.
