Harm van den Dorpel

Harm van den Dorpel builds systems in which images can change through repeated acts of generation, evaluation and selection. Software provides a structure, while the artist’s responses help determine what develops within it. The work considers how aesthetic preferences form and how intuition interacts with computational procedures.

Born in Zaandam in 1981 and based in Berlin, van den Dorpel works across software, collage, sculpture and works on paper. His interest in emergent form brings together ideas from genetics, language and computation. These sources become practical methods for making art, rather than illustrations of a scientific model.

Van den Dorpel’s work also engages with the distribution and ownership of digital art. In 2015, he co-founded left gallery, an online gallery for downloadable digital works. His art is held by institutions including the Stedelijk Museum, MAK, the Victoria and Albert Museum and ZKM. Exhibitions such as Free at the New Museum and I Was Raised on the Internet at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago situate his practice within broader questions about networked images and contemporary culture.