This monograph focuses on a multimedia installation by Samson Young that poetically traces the idiosyncratic rhythms of love, memory, experiences of time, and AI. Essays and a rich set of unpublished materials offer new keys to understanding the research of the artist.
Samson Young's first West Coast solo exhibition debuts Intentness and songs, a multimedia installation at SFMOMA that poetically traces the idiosyncratic rhythms of love, memory, and experiences of time. In this interconnected audiovisual landscape, Young draws on the duration and rhythm of human and generative AI memory recall processes as the basis for polychromatic sculptures, videos, and a mesmerizing soundscape. Visitors are invited to wander through pathways of wooden boards with markings created through a mix of techniques and 3D-printed boards etched and embedded with objects and memories excerpted from the lives of the artist and his husband.
This monograph, published on the occasion of the exhibition, features two new essays by SFMOMA curators Karen Cheung and Alison Guh, a conversation between Xiaoyu Weng and the artist that delves into the exhibition's emotional resonance, and philosophical implications of memory, AI, and time. The publication also includes an extended note on the technical aspects of the work. The texts are accompanied by archival image collages by book designer Dixon Chan.
Widely recognized for his singular approach towards sound and new technologies, Samson Young (born 1979 in Hong Kong) utilizes performance, video, and installation to rigorously examine the cultural, political, and historical contexts of sound.
