BERNHARD BUHMANN | THE SIGNAL AND THE NOISE

Titled after Nate Silver’s book of the same name, Bernhard Buhmann’s exhibition The Signal and The Noise continues his in-depth study of the individual within the Information Age. In today’s highly-digitalised society, the ease of access to an overwhelmingly large amount of data, and its rapid distribution proves easier for people to extract what supports their pre-existing views. In a world perpetually flooded by technology, Buhmann’s new works scrutinise its affective ability to limit our own perceptions or beliefs.

Bernhard Buhmann contemplates the consequences from both a social and individual level in the event of when shared information is misconstrued. Silver explains the signal as representative of what is relevant and crucial, which is however, surrounded by noise; a deluge of distracting data. The book comments upon the brain’s innate tendency to search for patterns where there are none – in such circumstances, how might one distinguish the truth from an influx of big data?

Throughout the course of Buhmann’s overarching body of work, he has portrayed the gradual development of multiple elements which accompany the characters which have consistently occupied the contents of his canvases. Mimicking the laser-cut, vector graphics of the online era, planes of smooth, sweeping gradients unfold across the surface as Buhmann leads the eye across all corners of the painting to follow fluctuating, undulating lines, and his own painterly interferences.

The trajectory of the source can no longer be discerned from the ceaseless cacophony of information that submerges the digital sphere. In such a transient environment, each multi-layered composition builds upon a conglomeration of shapes to depict the fragmented, changing self. Buhmann cites references to early 20th century Modernism, and concomitantly, alludes to the foundations of the computer screen – the pixel. With a myriad of hues derived from a technicolor spectrum, the paintings chart the fluid transformation of the collapsible interior framework in its constant deconstruction and reconstruction. In their regenerative nature, his abstractions are variations of archetypal appearances in an ever-evolving, online world.

Image caption: Bernhard Buhmann, Black Orange, 2021. Oil and acrylic on canvas, 210 x 150 cm.

Courtesy of Carbon 12 gallery.