With its sparse installation and stark black-and-white imagery, Caleb Sandblom’s Systems of Perception may at first feel a bit austere, but the story behind the works reveals an engaging and unexpected journey. At the centre of the exhibition, its kernel, is a set of photographic negatives. The sleeve in which they were found dates them to 1973. Sandblom has been unable to discover anything else about their origin or subject: eleven images of a seated woman and one of a plant. The who, where and why remain unanswered. We are left with artifacts untethered from their original context. Sandblom takes this disconnection as the starting point for a series of further transformations.
Through digital and manual processes, Sandblom develops a body of work rooted in the source photographs but fundamentally altered as they move from one medium to another.
The first transformations are a series of black-and-white paintings. Sandblom scans the negatives and processes the resulting images through various algorithms, reducing them to black and white. He then translates these digital patterns into hand-painted works and collages. At this stage, the woman remains recognizable. We can look past the abstraction and reconstruct the original image in our minds.
Next, Sandblom translates the pixelated image into text. Consider Woman Instructions 1. Reading from left to right, each white pixel is represented by “on” and each black pixel by “off”; a forward slash indicates a new line. An exceptionally patient reader could follow these instructions to reconstruct the image. Although it no longer looks like a photograph, the information needed to recover it remains encoded in the text.
Sandblom takes the process further. Using text-to-speech software, he converts the instructions into an audio file, which drives the graphic line in the Wave Form video on the opposite wall. At this stage, reconstructing the original image from the resulting work is no longer a practical possibility. Finally, Sandblom feeds the Wave Form video into an algorithm that generates billowing abstract shapes. The result is the video Clouds, now far removed from its point of origin: a photograph of a seated woman in 1973.
Sandblom describes his goal as exploring the “intersection of human identity and technology,” viewing the self as a “networked cyborg” shaped by its tools. The key idea is that our tools do more than help us accomplish tasks. They extend our capacities, but in doing so, they also change us.
This is not unique to new technologies. Consider something as old and fundamental as language. It allows us to formulate and communicate thoughts and ideas that might otherwise remain inexpressible. Writing extends these possibilities, allowing ideas to be developed, stored and transmitted. These tools do not simply serve our thinking; they help shape it.
The relationship is reciprocal: we create our tools, and our tools, in turn, shape us. Today, the technologies we use to interact with the world are changing rapidly. What are these tools making possible? How might they be changing us in the process? Sandblom’s exhibition offers a way to explore these questions.
Sandblom uses the transformation of content from one medium to another as a generative tool. His works can be understood as collaborations between the artist and the technologies he employs. Consider Cut-out Woman 1. Sandblom begins by scanning the negative and processing it digitally into a black-and-white image. He then hand-cuts and assembles shapes based on this digital result. The work emerges through an interaction between his decisions and the possibilities and constraints of the tools he uses.
TheWoman Instructions pieces, by contrast, translates the scanned image into text. Rather than presenting an image, it provides instructions for reconstructing one. The shift in medium changes not only the form of the work but also how its content can be accessed. Each medium retains or emphasizes certain aspects of the source while making others less apparent. For the viewer, this creates a different encounter with the subject: we recognize a person in a photograph, interpret patterns in a painting, or read a sequence of symbols as language.
In a world increasingly mediated by digital technologies and artificial intelligence, Sandblom’s project feels particularly relevant. The systems through which we encounter information do not simply transmit it; they organize and transform it, influencing what we notice and how we interpret the world. These processes are often difficult to see because we experience their results rather than the mechanisms that produce them. By making successive transformations visible, Sandblom invites us to look more closely at the technologies that shape our perception. The question is not simply what these tools allow us to do, but how they are changing the way we think and experience the world.
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