We are pleased to announce 'Randomized', the new solo-exhibition by Eelco Brand at TORCH gallery. Opening on 6 April, it consists of new animation video works and sculptures, prints and drawings. All are made with 3D-modeling and digital techniques. While the digital videos refer to the physical world by simulations of moving nature, the rest of the artworks contrarily emphasizes the immateriality of the digital world. No matter what medium used, all that Brand makes, comes from a computer-generated, digital reality: forms and depictions are build from scratch to the wishes and specifics of its maker.
The animation 'QTQ.movi' shows us a detailed rock wall at night, with soft light illuminating its roughness. This lightning comes from little floating luminous jellyfish-like beings, who slowly emerge from an opening in the rock and then disappear into another. With their fluorescent and elegant moving lines and lights, they seem to refer to sea creatures or lampions, yet their digital origin is unmistakable. Because of the slow sequence of appearances, Brand creates the suggestion of a living organism, only using digital tools. With computer software and animation techniques, he is constantly looking for ways to visualize convincing organic and real creations out of lifeless digital matter.
The main subject in the animation works of Brand, is a setting of nature, functioning as a backdrop for simulations of plants and movements of flourishing and sprouting. The endless cycles and the way movement are constructed in the animations, can be seen as refined mechanisms. Tiny mechanical parts are smoothly in motion together, like movements of a clockwork. One of the reasons for using electronic, digital tools to display and simulate natural settings is to question to which extend the life of nature exists of merely mechanical processes. Nature as a machine.
Contrary to these detailed displays of natural scenes, are the sculptures, drawings and prints in this exhibition. Designed using the same software, they point out that digital creations lack tactility. In the virtual world of 3D modelling, there is no such thing as gravity or mass. Objects can break and move through others, because of their immateriality. Using elementary 3D objects like small cubes and spheres, in these works Brand shows us the building blocks of digital sculpting. Repetition and randomness define the synthetic character of digital origin.
Eelco Brand ( 1969, Rotterdam) lives and works in Breda. He is represented by TORCH gallery in Amsterdam, DAM gallery in Berlin, Gallery Lumière in Seoul en Studio la Città in Verona. His work is exhibited worldwide and is part of a large number of institutional and private collections.