《a poem about tide breath（观潮）》

2025
Installation

Material:  Light, air, glass, electricity, code, algorithm and live tide data


ask (sun, moon, earth){
how(water){
rise;
}
}

The work explores the possibilities of machine perception through the act of observing the tide. Presented as a linear line of code, the text evokes two different ways humanity has interpreted the concept of tide throughout history: as a physical phenomenon governed by the gravitational relationship between the sun, the moon, and the earth, and as a poetic question posed to the cosmos. By translating the movement of water into data, code, and light, the work considers how technology mediates our perception of the natural world.


The installation retrieves real-time tidal data from a monitoring station in Venice, where water level is measured by a floating sensor and uploaded online every five minutes. An AI system uses these measurements to adjust the pulsing rhythm of the neon word “rise”. Unlike human perception which experiences the continuous movement of water, the machine encounters the tide through discrete moments of measurement. During the five-minute gaps between updates, the system must rely on mathematical prediction to construct a speculative model of the water’s movement, until the next measurement arrives.


By foregrounding these temporal gaps in data acquisition, the work examines how machine perception is shaped by incomplete and discontinuous encounters with reality. It also reflects on our broader reliance on scientific instruments and data to observe, understand, and predict natural phenomena. The glowing plasma inside the neon echoes the celestial forces that give rise to the tides, while its breathing pulse becomes an imagined tide of the machine.



该作品通过“观潮”这一人性行为，探索了机器感知的各种可能。作品文字以可执行代码的形式呈现，同时指向了人类从古到今理解潮汐的两种方式：科学界受太阳、月球与地球之间引力关系支配的物理现象，与诗文中向自然界提出的哲学问题。该作品通过将水流的运动转化为数据、代码与光影，探讨了技术如何作为中介，塑造我们对自然世界的感知。

威尼斯的潮位监测站通过浮动传感器测量水位，每隔五分钟将数据上传至网络。装置实时读取这些潮汐数据，并由人工智能系统根据水位变化，调节霓虹灯代码中“rise”一词的脉动节奏。水流本身持续不断地运动，但机器只能在每次数据更新时“观看”到潮汐的某个瞬间。等待数据更新的五分钟里，系统无法直接感知水位的变化，只能根据已有的数据推测这段时间里潮位的起伏，直到下一次测量数据到来。

通过凸显数据获取过程中的时间空隙，作者意在探讨机器如何在不完整、不连续的观测中建立对现实的感知，同时反思我们在观察、理解和预测自然现象时对科学仪器及数据的广泛依赖。霓虹灯管内发光的等离子体呼应了引发潮汐的天体物质，而其呼吸般的脉动则体现了机器所构想的潮汐。