Harm van den Dorpel’s (1981) practice focuses on emergent systems and the role technology plays in their development and meaning. Engaging with diverse materials and forms, including works on paper, sculpture, computer-generated graphics, and software, van den Dorpel’s works are continuously evolving, informed by feedback loops and the design of algorithmic systems.
Working within and beyond the lineage of ‘net art’, a core aspect of van den Dorpel’s practice is software development that addresses specific approaches to artificial intelligence. With immense 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.
For his newest series of work Anicca (2025) the artist drew his inspiration from sand mandala drawings by Tibetan Buddhist monks. This tradition involves the creation and destruction of mandalas made from coloured sand, now represented by coloured pixels.
On each viewing cycle a new unique “endless knot” is slowly drawn on screen. Almost immediately after completion, the composition disintegrates into a pile of sand, and gradually falls off the screen by means of a simulated gravitational force.
The work is an appeal to patience from the viewer, and a reflection on the impermanence of digital generative art in general.