Upstream's Daily Net Art Update (#7)

Upstream’s Daily Net Art Update (#7), for the heroes stuck at home to flatten the curve.

When you have to stay at home there’s always Net Art. Art made for the internet, meant to be experienced at home, behind your own computer.

Today: Harm van den Dorpel, Death Imitates Language (2016-ongoing). Find it at https://deathimitateslanguage.harmvandendorpel.com/.

About 100,000 digital paintings are tiled in the online gallery of Death Imitates Language, representing the cumulative output of a computer-driven composition system initiated by artist Harm van den Dorpel in 2016. Beginning with a single, original pair of images—a nongendered “Adam & Eve”—the system “breeds” images together iteratively to create possible new compositions.
Van den Dorpel then reviews the results, excising some aesthetic expressions and encouraging others, like a breeder selecting favorable traits; some images are also produced physically for gallery exhibition. Even in physical form, the works resist classification as singular objects: transparent, layered, and fluid in composition, they appear as frozen moments from larger dynamic systems and ecologies.

Sales inquiry: info@upstreamgallery.nl

Publication date: 24 Mar '20