Keith Tyson's Universal Symphony - Serlachius

TIMO VALJAKKA, CURATOR OF THE EXHIBITIONIn the works of British artist Keith Tyson, everything is connected to everything, surprisingly and without hierarchy. This is also indicated by the name of his exhibition, Universal Symphony. The exhibition at Serlachius Manor is the largest solo exhibition of the Turner Prize-winning artist’s career.

Keith Tyson (b. 1969) has mastered his tools and materials, whether it is painting, sculpture, photography or drawing. But he is also an accomplished programmer for whom artificial intelligence and algorithms are everyday tools. Tyson’s intricate works offer fascinating perspectives not only into the world but also into what art can be.

Tyson is not interested in recognisable style or self-expression. In his works, he examines the different forces, relationships and processes that we use to try to understand the world and through which things and phenomena gain meaning. These include, for example, various physical and chemical chains of events, language models used by artificial intelligence, and the latest achievements in quantum physics.

Tyson sees art and poetry as attempts to express about what cannot be conveyed in other ways. His works are based on knowledge and emotion as well as on the viewer’s bodily experience in front of them, such as the monumental 16 m³ of Ocean (Atlantic).

Art Machine gives instructions

Developed by Tyson in the 1990s, Art Machine delves into the essence of art. It is a set of algorithms programmed into a computer, or precise instructions based on a database that is a map of all stored human information. When the Art Machine processes the material fed to it according to the conditions given to it, it produces a set of instructions according to which Tyson implements the artwork. The instructions include the subject of the work, dimensions, materials and other parameters required at any given time.

The exhibition features four works created from hundreds of proposals by the Art Machine. The proposals and the works based on them are not only surprising, but also completely different from each other. All proposals are equally valuable, regardless of whether they have been implemented or not. Some are still waiting to be implemented, while others will probably never be implemented due to insurmountable technical, practical or financial challenges.

The laws of nature behind art

“Art does not reproduce what we see; rather, it makes us see,” Paul Klee wrote. Klee’s phrases fit well with Tyson’s works, many of which are devices or instruments rather than aesthetic objects in the traditional sense of the word.

Let’s take a couple of examples: Everything (2024) is a cube-shaped metal box with a surface full of sensors, meters, and displays. The work does not tell anything about itself, but all the more about the world outside itself. It tracks 25 physical variables in real time, starting with air temperature, humidity, and pressure.

Consequently, the large-scale Nature Painting (Deep Impact) (2010) was created as a result of the combined effect of gravity, fluid dynamics and chemical reactions. In doing so, Tyson relinquished almost all control and let the chemicals carve put their own paths. He calls the work a nature painting because it is not an image of nature but is a manifestation of the forces that shape it.

Galactic Sundial

Serlachius Manor Park displays one of Tyson’s most exciting works, which at a glance seems to be a stylized human figure on a pedestal made of stone. The character’s right hand is pointing down towards the grass field, the left is high in the air. If you stop to look at the steel figure, you can notice its hands moving slowly, like clock hands.

The Dark Sundial (2024) is a precision instrument in which Tyson has replaced the worldview represented by a traditional sundial with an incomparably larger one, while at the same time placing planet Earth in a galactic frame. The figure’s long index finger shows us at every moment where the massive black hole Sagittarius A* is in the centre of the Milky Way. It is 27,000 light-years from Mänttä.

The article has been published in the museum’s customer magazine in Finnish language.

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