Ian Cheng ENTROPY WRANGLER March 22 - May 6, 2013 Opening reception: April 16, 7-9PM Ackerstraße 53, Düsseldorf |
 The universe is relentlessly bleak. An exploding star wipes out vast populations of who knows what. Here: Earthquake. Tsunami. Polar melt. Meteor shower. The second law of thermal dynamics says things move from order to disorder. Skyscraper to rubble. Humpty to dumpty. F*** yes to f***. Entropy reigns. Probability that nature cares about homo sapiens: 0%  Life is improbable but happens. Natural selection improbably produces the highest order of order, an organism, and keeps it from crumbling into inert material for as long as it can. Entropy-delay. Culture emerges as a self-stabilizing force to socialize entropy-delay for populations of homo sapiens. On the one hand: "We hate change, we hate aging." On the other: “The singularity is near.” Probability that culture will delay death: 64%  Certain populations campaign against the culture of entropy-delay. Terrorists. Drones. Hysteric celebrities. Jokers. Undead artists. Entropy-accelerators born again in a world unnaturally stabilized by culture. Romantic in the mind but hard to deal with when you have a body.  Probability that entropy-acceleration will trend as a lifestyle choice: 0.2% Dealing with life means dealing with uncertainty in spite of culture. We know now that the uncertainties produced by the entropic forces of reality have a secret shape. Bayesian probability, simulation, flow, are tools to model this shape. A culture bathed in these tools can come to recognize and wrangle the shape of uncertainty – like lungs wrangling the chaotic dispersal of oxygen molecules inside us every moment. Over time, we begin to unnaturally perceive entropy without fear, delay, or reactionary embrace. We can even come to love it unromantically. Probability that a future culture necessitates evolving our relationship to entropy: 99%  Modeling the look and feel of entropy management: The exhibition premieres a live computer simulation that changes and evolves, forever. A set of objects assigned a set of properties unleashed on each other. Entropy reigns. Symbols decompose. Choreographies emerge. Assemblages assemble and die. Available now at Off Vendome. Coming soon for iOS and Android. And, a suite of shape-shifting material things: - a vacuum sealed cephalopod. Its dead body deprived of oxygen, forever delaying aerobic decay. Nitrogen released from anaerobic decay reinflates the vacuum seal from inside out, dynamically changing the display’s form in 30 days or less. In a million years: a packet of oil. - a vacuum sealed explosion of emergency chili con carne. Transforms from 2D painting to 3D sculpture in 30 days or less as anaerobic nitrogen emissions kick in. In a million years: a packet of chili oil. - a live burner phone submerged in oil. Now accepting txt msgs and voicemails. + 49 01525 2639266 Ian Cheng (born 1984, Los Angeles) is an artist based in New York. He studied Cognitive Science at UC Berkeley and received an MFA from Columbia University in 2009. Upcoming exhibitions include 2013 Lyon Biennial. Recent solo exhibitions include Too Humans All Too Humans, The Vanity Los Angeles; This Papaya Tastes Perfect, Formalist Sidewalk Poetry Club, Miami Beach, Florida. Recent group exhibitions include DISIMAGES, DIS Magazine, New York; A Disagreeable Object, Sculpture Center, New York. |
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