Contemporary Istanbul

Upstream Gallery is pleased to announce its participation in Contemporary Istanbul, that will take place 20 - 23 September 2018, with a presentation of works by Harm van den Dorpel, Constant Dullaart, Jan Robert Leegte and Rafaël Rozendaal: four contemporary Dutch artists at the forefront of the developments in digital art. Within the dynamic presentation, duo presentations of two websites by two different artists will alternate over four large scale monitors.

Harm van den Dorpel’s broad practice includes sculpture, installation, works on paper, computer generated graphics and software. Rooted in the conceptual heritage of net.art, Van den Dorpel’s works often simulate neural networks. The role of technology in his works is a means to an end: a tool to increase the understanding of our experience. “I seek to produce works that explore not only the technological hardware we use in our daily lives, but how we use it, the modalities of interface that are created, enabled, facilitated and restricted by the advance of technology.”

Like the work of his digital native peers, Constant Dullaart’s often conceptual work manifests itself both online and off. Within his practice, he reflects on the broad cultural and social effects of communication and image processing technologies while critically engaging the power structures of mega corporations that dramatically influence our worldview through the internet. He examines the boundaries of manipulating websites such as Google, Facebook and Instagram.

Jan Robert Leegte is among the first artists who were involved in the 90s NetArt movement. Since 1997, he creates art in the form of websites, which he connects to art historical movements such as minimalism, land art and conceptualism. Leegte also translates the themes of his work to offline media such as print, sculpture and projections. A reoccurring theme in his work is the sculptural materiality of interfaces of computer programs. Like the early graphic design of cursors, selection boxes and menu bars that were to give the user the impression of actually physically pressing the buttons with graphic shadows. Leegte often uses these components and by placing them in a new context, giving them their own, sculptural legitimacy.

Rafaël Rozendaal’s artistic practice comprises websites, installations, prints and writing. His work takes shape through a range of transformations – from movement into abstraction, from virtual into physical space, and from website to print – with all of them informing each other. All of his works have one thing in common: they stem from a fascination with moving images and interactivity in its most basic form. Although Rozendaal is best known for his artworks in the form of websites, he sees no hierarchy between his websites and physical works: ‘The experience that you have when you are at home using Abstract Browsing on your computer is as authentic as viewing one of the tapestries in a gallery. From my point of view: the Internet is like a waterfall, an exhibition more like an aquarium’.

Upstream Gallery's participation in Contemporary Istanbul is supported by the Mondriaan Fund.