HARM VAN DEN DORPEL
HARM VAN DEN DORPEL
Harm van den Dorpel’s (1981, the Netherlands) practice focuses on systems that are ever changing and developing in the context of technology.
Van den Dorpel engages with diverse materials and forms, including works on paper, sculpture, computergenerated graphics, and software, through which the works are continuously evolving, informed by feedback loops and the design of algorithmic systems.
Working within and beyond the origin of ‘net art, the core aspect of the artist’s practice is software development that addresses specific approaches to artificial intelligence. With extensive skill and craftsmanship, he builds advanced systems that draw on intuition and subliminal processes of the mind in order to continually output unexpected and curious aesthetic forms that embody a feeling of subconscious computation, approaching the process as algorithmic archaeology:
“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.”
Van den Dorpel is an early explorer of Web3 and is the co-founder of blockchain-based art marketplace left. gallery. In 2015, he was the first artist to sell a work bought with cryptocurrency (non-fungible tokens) to a museum (see this article on ArtNews).
The artist lives and works in Berlin. His work is in the collections of a.o. the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam (NL), MAK Vienna (AT), ZKM Karlsruhe (DE). Selected (group) exhibitions include the New Museum in New York (US), MoMa PS1 in New York (US), Ullens Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing (CN), Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw (PL), Museum Kurhaus Kleve (DE), ZKM Karlsruhe (DE), and the Netherlands Media Art Institute in Amsterdam (NL). In 2015, Van denDorpelstartedLeftGallery,anonline gallery that commissions, produces, and sells downloadable files. His first solo exhibition at Upstream Gallery was Pattern and Presence (2018).
Markov’s Window (software from 2024)
Installed at Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam
Death Imitates Language (2016-17)
Installation view at Bar-Am Berlin
Mutant Garden, (2021)
Installation view at Upstream Gallery
Blush Array, (2022)
Exposure on light sensitive metallic paper, mounted and framed 80 × 112.9 cm
MUTANT GARDEN
All the Mutant Garden artworks originate from an algorithm custamized by the artist. This algorithm is called ‘Cartesian genetic programming’, intented approximately twenty years ago by Julian F. Miller and Peter Thomson. It is called ‘Cartesian’ because it represents a computer program as a twodimensional grid: nodes and layers. Althought the resultofvandenDorpel’sspecificuseof this algorithm is also two-dimensional, the algorithm is versatile and can also generate completely different systems, such time based media, human language or three-dimensional structures.
As we also encounter in genetic encoding in “real nature”, the genotype contains many redundant genes, which are well known to assist in effective evolutionary development. In Mutant Garden, clicking one rectangular ‘mutant’ will cause its siblings to be replaced with newly mutated offspring. This breeding strategy requires only one parent to be selected because the algorithm utilizes mutation, rather than cross-over.
As many people nowadays tend to equate articial intelligence with neural networks, I wanted to highlight the evolutionary progress in this recent history of computation, approaching it as algorithmic archeology. Each new innovation in this lineage aimed to improve or declare its predecessor obsolete, yet would simultaneously stand on its shoulders.
Masked Éclat, (2021)
Light exposure on photographic aluminium paper, mounted behind acrylic glass, framed 100 x 100 cm
Unique
EARLY OUTPUTS MUTANT GARDEN
The early outputs of the Mutant Garden software have as preliminary titles the moment they were first rendered, as rough outputs of the Mutant Garden software in 2019. Much has happened since, both in the artist’s life as well as in the degree that these materials have been reordered, retouched, recontextualized, and materialized. These early outputs originate from a time when the idea of Mutant Garden as NFT wasn’t even born yet.
As mentioned before the essence of these artworks is the process of the Mutant Garden Software. The works are a generative and manual moment in time, with them being fertilized in 2019 and born in 2022 or 2023 through manipulation and rendering.
Left:
Friday, April 26 2019, 00:50:27 CEST (2023)
UltraChrome
70 × 70 cm
Edition of 2 plus 1 artist’s proof
Right:
Thursday, March 28 2019, 16:10:34, (2023)
UltraChrome
70 x 70 cm
Edition of 2 plus 1 artist’s proof
print on Hahnemühle paper, painted wooden frame
print on Hahnemühle paper, painted wooden frame
Thursday, April 11 2019, 13:40:18 CEST
(2022) UltraChrome print on Hahnemühle paper, painted wooden frame
70 × 70 cm
Edition of 2 plus 1 artist’s proof
FERNAND
Fernand consists of twenty-five drawings, each based on a recently discovered work by Fernand Léger. Van den Dorpel reflects on Léger by drawing with a laptop touchpad, the results of which overlap in time in an ever-changing order. You can run the constantly evolving software work here.
This work was commissioned by the Triton Foundation Collection, in collaboration with Upstream Gallery. Premiered at the Kröller Müller museum alongside original paintings by Léger.
Fernand (2022) Generatieve software / generative software Edition of 5 plus 1 artist’s proof
NESTED EXCHANGE
The works in ‘Nested Exchange’ could be thought of as ‘information works’ as much as art works. The individual specimens find their form by a process of information exchange with each other. The images are connected via nodes in a nested structure.
They ‘communicate’ by the flipping of a node within the structure which then creates a new equilibrium in the system which affects everything that comes afterward. Nodes communicate - or gossip - with each other. The imperative of the work is to produce the greatest diversity possible, so each specimen is driven to be as different as it can be from those around it.
Cussos Unfence Thermographers (2018) is one of the outcomes of this hipster algorithm.
Cussos Unfence Thermographers (2018)
UltraChrome HD print on Hahnemühle
paper 100 x 100 cm
Edition of 1 plus 1 artist’s proof
MARKOVS WNDOW
Harm van den Dorpel’s generative animation piece Markov’s Window is a typical example of generative art. The work constantly evolves and generates new images and thus has a level of autonomy. The artist only wrote the code and the work now creates compositions on it’s own.
Markov was a Russian mathematician (1856 - 1922) who is best known for his work on chance. He described the so called “Markov Chain”: a simple method to calculate the probability of something new happening, by looking only at the current situation, and ignoring events in the past.
The composition in Markov’s Window starts off as a single square, filling the whole screen. This square can split into multiple segments, it might change its colour, or it might rotate 45 degrees. Each of these changes in appearance have a particular chance of happening, purely based on their current state. By defining only a few simple probabilistic rules the artist created a system that can achieve a very complex composition. Whereas Mondriaan would make many studies and versions to reach one single best possible composition, this work instead offers a perpetual changing situation, an embrace of change as refusal of suprematism.
DEATH IMITATES LANGUAGE
Death Imitates Language is an ongoing series of works exploring the development of meaning in generative aesthetics using micro feedback and a genetic algorithm. It consists of a website and a series of printed and boxed collage works.
The public website contains an enormous population of speculative works. Each of these works is generated by inheriting sequences of information - a sort of DNAfrom their ancestors. These ‘genetic’ codes determine which elements appear in the work and in what form or constellation. The population changes over time by means of subjective (‘natural’) selection by the artist: micro feedback or ‘likes’. This feedback - combined with visitor statistics and simulated aging - causes the genetic program to mutate and (arguably) improve over time.
When creatures reach their optimal state they are ‘frozen’ and translated into physical objects. These objects are layered in construction, partly transparent and square. They can be hung and watched from all sides.
ALGUES ARTIFICIELLES
Having been inspired by the seaweed and jellyfish washed ashore in Northern France, van den Dorpel aimed to pro- gramme a simple piece of computer code to simulate these smooth, round curves. The effects are surprisingly sa- tisfying, remindind us of the sculptural works of Hans Arp.
Van den Dorpel devised a system in which the drawings - consisting of multi- ple lines and shapes - would evolve and improve over time. In many iterations, the system would give him a genera- tion of works; each time he would pick two from which more ‘children’ would be bred. Because the breeding always happens between ‘siblings’ - a sort of mechanical incest - the diversity would gradually converge.
The process of selecting candidates for breeding, examining the results, and using those results to further breed to eliminate or emphasise particular traits in animals and flowers is called ‘hybrid vigour’. The artist’s website, ‘Hybrid Vi- gor’, is publicly accessible to crowd- source this process in an evolutionarily selective way, using the internet visitor as the fitness function.
Defenseless Qualm (2020)
UltraChrome print on Hahnemühle German Etching paper 80 x 65 cm Edition of 1 plus 1 artist’s proof
MARKOV’S DREAM
Harm van den Dorpel’s Markov’s Dream consists of 32 generative unique Ethereum tokenized digital artworks (ERC721), which are gradually released over time. Each unique token is animated, colored and nested, as a ‘setting’ of a computer program created by the artist. The first 20 tokens are consigned to Galerie Rüdiger Schöttle Munich and Upstream Gallery Amsterdam. The last 12 tokens will be offered by Folia.
Markov’s Dream is a response to the phenomenon of computers becoming platforms for humans who become tools in the profit sequestration chain. In effort to make the UX more metaphorically connected with human bodies, which have no hard edges, software like MacOS is to some extent rounded and ‘organicised’. Inspired by these shapes, Markov’s Dream shows impure circles or rounded squares in a dream space.
The animated artworks are indefinitely mutating and evolving, what challenges us to look differently at art as a medium. Sometimes parameters of the animations are fixed, sometimes they are fed with random numbers. As parameters are informed by these undetermined random numbers (comparable to throwing a die), the chance the generative process will repeat an image is close to zero. It will forever bring about new unpredictable compositions. This is in strong contrast with, for example, video art, which often depends on a predefined order of appearance, a beginning, and an end.
Markov’s Dream Softenon 2022)
Generative Animation
Minted as NFT via ERC-721 token standard Unique piece from a serie of 32
MASCHINE
Mercedes-Benz NXT wanted to enter the space of NFTs in the right way: by teaming up with the community. That’s why they choose Harm van den Dorpel and Fingerprints DAO to create a special NFT project, inspired by the by the so-called wagon-wheel effect, by which spoked wheels appear to rotate in a way that seemingly contrasts with their true speed and direction. Find out more about this in this video.
Harm van den Dorpel has been at the vanguard of blockchain-based art since 2015. He often uses generative techniques to create works that are constantly evolving and changing.
For “Maschine”, van den Dorpel chose motion, velocity, and perception as core themes. Each unique artwork depicts a mesmerizing radial pattern of complex and constantly changing illusions that occur when certain objects spin and accelerate.
The artist created and trained a neural network to identify and select generated outputs in line with his own artistic preferences. While not new to using AI in his work, this is the first time he uses a custom neural network. It is also his first work fully in 3D.
Gorden Wagener, Mercedes-Bens’ chief design officer since 2016, worked closely with van den Dorpel to creatively shape the concept and coordinate creative directions.
“Maschine“ will be available exclusively through Fingerprints DAO’s website. The collection will mint via a rebate Dutch auction on Wednesday, June 7 starting at 18:00 CET / 12:00 ET / 09:00 PT. We will provide more information about this Dutch auction soon.
Due to regulatory and taxation requirements, only collectors from all 26 EU countries, Brazil, Japan, Singapore, the U.K. Kingdom, and the United States will be able to participate in this auction.
Fingerprints DAO has guided this collaboration and will host the upcoming “Maschine” Dutch auction. Their dedication to advancing outstanding generative art aligns with Mercedes-Benz NXT’s vision to create digital objects that stand the test of time.
Maschine7 (2023)
Handconfigured generative and interactive animation, NFT (Dimensions variable)
Unique piece from a series of 1000, token #7/1000
Kloveniersburgwal 95 1011 KB Amsterdam t. +31 (0)20 4284284 e. info@upstreamgallery.nl
