PLEASE FORGET (EVERYTHING) one hour installation soundtrack. 

San Francisco, CA — Heron Arts is pleased to announce an immersive solo exhibition by Charles Lindsay. As a speculative provocation the show asks: “Can AI become sentient? If AI can become sentient, can it become conscious? If AI can become conscious, can it become enlightened?”

PLEASE FORGET (EVERYTHING) features two strikingly bright yellow Japanese parking
kiosks, each situated in its own Zen garden—one in Kyoto and the other in San Francisco.
These modified devices, ubiquitous in Japan, are imagined as intelligent nodes within a vast
global AI network, much like mushrooms sprouting from intricate underground mycelial webs.
Each kiosk becomes a speculative symbol of sentient AI—networked, pranking and/or elevating humanity. Numerous other artworks in the exhibition expand upon these ideas.
The concept for this exhibition began with Charles Lindsay's proposal to NASA suggesting the
use of retired Mars Rovers to create Zen gardens on Mars. That idea evolved further when
Charles posed his question about AI and consciousness to the renowned Zen Buddhist monk,
Toryo Ito, at the onset of the pandemic. Captivated by the inquiry, Toryo invited Charles to
exhibit at Ryōsoku-in Zen Temple in Kyoto.

Drawing on the Zen Buddhist principle of ‘Beginner’s Mind,’ advocating for a process of
forgetting (and forgiving) to facilitate rapid transformation, Lindsay presents his new installations and assemblages as koans: those infamously paradoxical Zen Buddhist riddles designed to circumvent logical reasoning—in preparation for sudden enlightenment.

Alongside his sculptural techniques, Lindsay integrates a wide range of tools and materials to
produce poetic video and creative works that further explore his thematic concepts. Utilizing
OpenAI tools including Sora, a text-to-video model that is currently in research, Voice Engine,
and a custom GPT, he creates AI-driven works that challenge viewers' perceptions, urging them to explore the deeper mysteries presented. These works, much like the accompanying koans, are designed to inspire contemplation and open new avenues of understanding.

This one hour sound track fuses field recordings from Japan with the artist's stream of consciousness approach to playing a rare 1912 koto, shakuhachi acquired in Koto's flea markets, found percussion ie. fisherman's floats and flotsam, along with a fine and highly resonant Boesendorfer 185 CS piano (at Heron Arts.) Field recordings include the persistent 'do not forget anything' messages delivered by synthesized voices in all manner of public transportation in Japan. 

Please put on your eye shades and head phones and take a trip with me. Thanks for listening. 

PLEASE FORGET (EVERYTHING)

Charles Lindsay is a multi-disciplinary artist interested in technology, eco-systems, semiotics and signaling. He creates immersive environments, sound installations, sculptures built from salvaged aerospace and bio-tech equipment, videos and photographs. 

Educated as a geologist Lindsay is the SETI Institute’s AIR program director, a Guggenheim Fellow, recipient of the Robert Rauschenberg Residency, Fellow at the Nevada Museum of Art’s Center for Art and Environment and the innovator behind OSA EARS: a project designed to deliver real time sound from one of the world’s most bio-diverse rain forests to anyone anywhere with internet. Lindsay’s work has been profiled by WIRED, Motherboard, ARTonAIR.org, Viralnet, NPR and CNN International. 

At SETI Lindsay collaborated with astrophysicist Laurance Doyle - who employed information theory and algorithms to prove that humpback whale communications exhibit syntax. “CODE Humpback” references this research through sculptural audio / visual works, combining ideas about encrypted signals and inter-species communications. “CODE Humpback” debuted at the Bolinas Museum (2014)and showed again at MassMoCA in 2017.

Lindsay received a Guggenheim Fellowship (2010) for “CARBON” - a hybrid process synthesizing photography and drawing. “CARBON” harnesses the language of high resolution scientific imaging to render ambiguous the micro and the vast, the organic and the digital, the real and the alien. The large scale visuals are altered through sensor feedback and modulation to create subtly responsive art works. “CARBON IV” was shown at the LED LAB NYC (2014.) 

Lindsay has created and directed three live music shows, for which he plays six string electric cello, electronics and combinations of voice, continuum, processed field recordings and electric guitar. All incorporate his visuals, with improvisational music developed through collaborations. The Electrosense of Paddlefish was made in response to water issues in the American west. It was created and performed with David Rothenberg for Ear to the Earth at the Frederick Lowe Theater (2010.) Trout Fishing in Space imagines an off Earth habitation. Collaborators included Billy Gomberg, Thenmozhi Soundararajan, Dan Snazelle and David Rothenberg. It was performed in Woodstock at CPW (2012.) NEAR(ER) imagines alternate modes of consciousness and involved video artist Chen Serfaty. NEAR(ER) was performed at USC's Rhythms + Voices performance series (2013.)

Lindsay is developing several new works including: “the Sound of a Quantum Computer Thinking” from his recordings at NASA Ame’s Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab and “Hope Island” from his oceanic work north of Vancouver Island. “Ecotone” envisions a mobile space in which to decontextualise live sounds from OSA EARS so they are experienced as though in an off earth / post earth environment. His 'Field Station' installation showed at MassMoca in 2016/2017 and then morphed and travelled to the Des Moines Art Center and the Akron Art Museum. He is currently working on several projects in China.

Recent lectures include "Anthropocentric?" for RISD's Digital + Media department, “Destination Unknown: Aliens, Art and Consensual Reality” at Rhodes House, for the 2014 class of Rhodes’ Scholars and ‘Conversations on Media Culture and Practice’ at CalArts Center for Integrated Media. Lindsay presented at Moogfest 2014, the California Academy of Sciences, Stanford’s Department of Art and Art History, 100 Year Starship Symposium (DARPA), USC’s “Visions + Voices” performance series, SwissNex, the American Museum of Natural History, Mountain Film in Telluride, The School of Visual Arts, Pratt School of Art and Design, the Open Center in New York, IDEA CITY in Toronto. Chronus Art Center Shanghai, and at The Hat Creek Observatory for SETI.

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