By Harm van den Dorpel, 2024 - 1/4

Generative animation inspired by the work "Study for Camino Real" by Anni Albers from 1967. Each triangle (cell) its rotation is based on the configurations of its neighbouring cells. This algorithm could be described as a combination of a cellular automaton and a Markov chain.

The grid is reconfigured in intervals, and scans from top left to bottom right, referring to the process of weaving, or writing text. Each time rotation completes, touching triangles transition to one shared colour, forming groups.

By Harm van den Dorpel, 2024 - 3/4

Generative animation inspired by the work "Study for Camino Real" by Anni Albers from 1967. Each triangle (cell) its rotation is based on the configurations of its neighbouring cells. This algorithm could be described as a combination of a cellular automaton and a Markov chain.

The grid is reconfigured in intervals, and scans from top left to bottom right, referring to the process of weaving, or writing text. Each time rotation completes, touching triangles transition to one shared colour, forming groups.

Generative animations built upon a cellular automaton in the tradition of Conway's Game of Life, where a minimal set of rules gives rise to extraordinary complexity, and where death is not failure but the system's natural feature. Presented in collaboration with Nguyen Wahed and Interface Gallery.

Stained Unravel

In his first solo exhibition with Upstream Gallery, Harm van den Dorpel features works from multiple series’ that react to different moments in the history of cybernetics.

Pattern and Presence, the title of the show, is taken from the book ‘How we became posthuman’ by N. Katherine Hayles (1999), in which she describes the historical development of cybernetics and politics of disembodiment.

Van den Dorpel employs various information technologies from this history of cybernetics in his artistic practice. He wants to demystify both the romantic notion of the ‘artistic genius’ as well as the ‘black box’ of computer algorithms, which increasingly influence our personal lives and forecast our political future. Where other traditional artistic mediums require the artist to create the work with their own hand, Van den Dorpel rather programs software and trains it by looping continuous feedback through its output in order to produce works with unpredictable aesthetic outcomes. In this hybrid process, genetic properties are ascribed to the elements and composition that make up his artworks. By selecting and crossbreeding across many generations, “optimal” artworks emerge.

For this new series of printed transparent work (which is a continuation of his earlier series “Death Imitates Language”) Van den Dorpel focuses on the structure of ‘nesting’: a strong organizing principle found in architecture, software development and human language. The artist draws on this system in order to compare the construction of language to the construction of artworks, and in doing so, refers to the painterly question of how to fill the two-dimensional plane using composition and layering. The genetic algorithms he uses, originate from developments in computer science which emerged in the 1960s through to the 1980s and include: ‘Turtle graphics’ by Seymour Papert (late 1960s); research of feedback, reflexivity, nesting and recursion (Autopoiesis, Varela & Maturana, 1972); and Artificial Life (Christopher Langton, 1986).

Van den Dorpel also draws on recent developments in blockchain technology, specifically the Ethereum blockchain, in order to assign each work a unique identifier (a hash or fingerprint). This functions as a token which can be traded on the Ethereum blockchain and changes the status of the artwork to a form of currency – or a representation of itself – which circles back to the initial question of embodiment: are the works in fact the works? Or, are they representations of an external, less material essence? 

Pattern and Presence

Typographic Trace

Ballpoint and pencil plotter drawing on paper

Uttered Modality

Diaphragm

Untitled

Fingerprinting

Metaballs ⁱⁱ

Metaballs

Plotter drawing based on a processed generated 3D model, with some manual interruptions.

Thistle (left)

Untitled Flower

Yellow Snow

Thistle (right)

The automated drawings are a series of works that were born out of being in the studio. The title of the series could be interpreted as a nod to the "[automatic drawings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrealist_automatism)" made by the surrealists.

Often when I’m creating serial works, I make different series at the same time. For example, when I was working on ‘Death Imitates Language’ I was making drawings, too. In the case of these, they came about when I would have certain small ideas, formal explorations, I suppose it would be best to call them. I would get started on them, and just seeing them on the screen or printed by a laser printer seemed to leave them a little flat and lifeless to me, not dynamic enough. I wanted to make them a bit more ‘live’, and, so, ironically, I introduced a machinic dimension.

I would set up a plotter that would begin drawing with a ballpoint pen, and then I would interfere in the drawing process. Sometimes I would pull out the pen or change the pen in the plotter as it was moving. It resulted in some very interesting effects. I particularly liked cases when, for instance, there would be horizontal line, and then a vertical line, and the movement of the plotter would displace the ink that hadn’t dried in the previous line. This created pleasant, unexpected painterly qualities. In a way, these are quite classical works, concerned with form and the temporal dimension - they take a lot of time to create which allows me to get bored and experiment with the process. They are something like classical cyborg art works. 

Automated Drawings

Beads III

Ascent

The probability of downward diagonal streams increases towards the bottom side of the drawing, creating the impression of curvature, as if hovering a planet.

Courtesy Takuro Someya Contemporary Art

Atlas

Vermis

Edition of 2 + 1AP

Named after an [Autechre track](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-F665Mkc0D0).

Altibzz

Takuro Someya Contemporary Art is pleased to announce the upcoming solo exhibition Cloud Writings by Harm van den Dorpel. This marks his first solo exhibition at the gallery and features a series of works including new pieces unveiled for the first time in Japan. In this exhibition, van den Dorpel presents algorithmic drawings shaped by his generative practice and the ideas of female artists active in minimalism and conceptual art in the late 20th century.

<a href='https://tsca.jp/exhibition/harm-van-den-dorpel-cloud-writings/' target='_blank'>Gallery Website...</a>

Photos by Shu Nakagawa

Activity

Anni 1

Anni 3

Stained Unravel

Night

Stained

Markov's Dream

Mother of Pearl

Game

De Stijl

Spring