How to see something when there is nothing (Laptop lecture performance)

Since 2019, Sheung Yiu has been working with remote sensing researchers in Finland following them on field trips to forest plots, and interviewing them about their 'forest reflectance model' — a statistical model used to interpret satellite imagery. Researchers use this model to retrieve information from low-resolution satellite imagery, inferring details about the landscape beyond what is immediately visible on the image. This entails a statistical and probabilistic way of seeing where the task of interpreting an image is increasingly deferred to the machine. In this performative lecture, he will take the audience on a desktop tour through folders of scientists' datasets. Interweaving archives, photographic artworks, and exhibition documentation, the talk will explore how to see the invisible while reflecting on a computer-aided vision that is becoming ever more abstract.