On Inference
Inference sits at the centre of how meaning is formed. Long before certainty arrives—if it arrives at all—the mind is already working, assembling partial information, testing hypotheses, and adjusting its expectations in response to what it encounters. Understanding is not delivered fully formed; it is inferred.
An interest in Bayesian inference has shaped how this process is considered within the work. In its simplest sense, Bayesian reasoning describes how beliefs are updated over time: prior assumptions are modified as new evidence appears. Knowledge is provisional, always contingent on what is already held and what is newly perceived. Importantly, this process does not move toward absolute truth, but toward better approximations—probabilities rather than conclusions.
This framework resonates strongly with both perception and interpretation. Viewers never approach an artwork as neutral observers. They arrive with prior experiences, expectations, and interpretive habits, which shape what is noticed, what is overlooked, and how meaning is assembled. As the work unfolds—through text, structure, or material presence—those priors may be reinforced, unsettled, or quietly revised.
In this sense, inference is not a failure of clarity but a fundamental condition of cognition. Ambiguity does not signal a lack of meaning; it creates the space in which meaning can be negotiated. Fragmentation, partial information, and gaps are not obstacles to understanding but active components of it. They prompt the mind to work, to predict, to revise, and to reflect on its own assumptions.
Text-based works make this process particularly visible. When language is incomplete or disrupted, reading becomes an act of hypothesis-testing. Words are anticipated before they are fully seen; absences are filled provisionally; interpretations shift as new fragments emerge. The viewer becomes aware not only of what is being read, but of how reading itself operates.
Bayesian inference also acknowledges uncertainty as irreducible. No amount of evidence ever eliminates it entirely. Instead, uncertainty is managed, recalibrated, and lived with. This resonates with broader experiences of psychological and emotional states, where understanding is rarely fixed and often revised in response to new internal or external conditions. Meaning remains dynamic, adaptive, and context-dependent.
Within this work, inference is treated as both method and subject. The works do not aim to instruct or resolve, but to create conditions in which interpretation unfolds gradually. They invite a slowed engagement, allowing viewers to notice their own acts of prediction, correction, and assumption-making as part of the encounter.
Ultimately, inference foregrounds a different relationship to knowledge—one that values attentiveness over certainty, and responsiveness over resolution. Meaning is not delivered; it is constructed, revised, and held provisionally. In this way, the work mirrors the cognitive processes through which understanding is continually negotiated, rather than conclusively achieved.