Hierophany (A new kind of fate), 2016

Hong Kong 2019
Hierophany (A new kind of fate)

OMR

Mixed Media
Black and white tetra dice
148.6 x 171.6 x 5.0 (厘米)
58.5 x 67.6 x 2.0 (吋)
Continuing their use of black and white dice, which began with ‘Hierophany’ in 2013 and ‘Calculating the Universe’ in 2014, Troika’s ‘A New Kind of Fate’ demonstrates their recent incorporation of tetrahedral dice. Tetrahedral dice are the first dice ever used by man and date back to before 2600 BC when three were used in the Royal Game of Ur, the ancient board race game found in the Royal Tombs of Ur in Iraq in the 1920s. Troika’s dice works originate from their interest in emergence - a process or system in which complexity arises from very simple interactions. Generated by a binary program, ‘A New Kind of Fate’ depicts the resulting ‘grown’ image. The colour of each new cell is dictated by the 3 nearest neighbour cells in the line above. What emerges is a pattern that cannot be predicted, through a ‘shortcut’, by any mathematical formula. ‘A New Kind of Fate’ references the historical use of dice as a means of determining fate, chance and luck. The roll of the dice relies on the laws of probability; their application to any external activity is a necessarily arbitrary connection, formulated by human action. In contrast, the fate of the modern man is increasingly determined by algorithms. A process or set of rules to be followed and implemented in problem-solving operations, the algorithm is autonomous, and can come to exist dependently from, and even influence everyday social activity.