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.

The exhibition brings together a body of 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. Alongside the screen-based works, the exhibition also includes a series of plotter drawings on paper — tracing the same generative logic into an anachronistic register.

Opening Reception: Friday April 3, 6pm
504 E 12 St, 10009 New York

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The title, Senescenence, is an intentional recursive misspelling of "senescence," the term for the gradual aging or deterioration of living systems, often associated with the browning of fallen leaves.

The works emerge from Van den Dorpel's ongoing research into the foundations of generative art: from the binary logic of the weaving loom, to early two-dimensional pixel graphics, to the contemporary GPU, where millions of cells can live, die, and transform simultaneously in real time. At each technological threshold, the capacity for complexity expands beyond full human control. The visual language draws on traditions that understand pattern as more than ornamentation. References to Anni Albers' textiles, Buddhist mandalas, and stained-glass windows evoke rule-based systems in which local decisions accumulate into forms that exceed their individual construction. In these systems, structure becomes a carrier of meaning. This aligns with a much older cross-cultural intuition: that geometry is not merely descriptive but generative. Within traditions of sacred geometry, structure and spirit are intertwined rather than opposed. Van den Dorpel approaches the algorithm with this mindset, not simply as a tool of expression, but as a system set into motion to allow unforeseen forms to emerge beyond the artist's direct control. The works are less composed than initiated; what appears on screen is not fully designed, but permitted.

Each cell exists only in relation to its neighbours, recursively and conditionally. Nothing endures. The patterns that surface are temporary negotiations with impermanence, and the work resists any attempt at final resolution.

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Photos by Shu Nakagawa

Installed across 1 to 6 screens, each rendering the same work at an increasing level of resolution or granularity. Pictured is a 4-screen configuration at resolutions 1, 2, 4, and 6.

At a set interval, all screens simultaneously rebuild from top to bottom, governed by the same mutating rules and colour palette.

Edition of 3 + 1AP. Each edition supports between 1 and 6 screens. As a multichannel software installation, the work is not suited to NFT distribution.

Photos by Shu Nagakgawa

Opening February 14, 2026

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Image: Nethermind Quilt