Biography
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, computer-generated 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, MAK Vienna, Victoria & Albert Museum London, ZKM Karlsruhe. Selected (group) exhibitions include the New Museum in New York, MoMa PS1 in New York, Ullens Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing, Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, Museum Kurhaus Kleve, ZKM Karlsruhe, and the Netherlands Media Art Institute in Amsterdam. In 2015, Van den Dorpel started left gallery, an online gallery that commissions, produces, and sells downloadable files. His most recent solo exhibition at Upstream Gallery was Our Inner Child (2023).