BRANDON MORSE : Static
March 17 – April 29, 2006
Conner Contemporary Art is very pleased to announce our first solo exhibition with Washington DC based digital artist, Brandon Morse. Morse’s work has been seen at School 33 Art Center, Baltimore, MD, at Strand on Volta, Washington, DC and most recently in the DC citywide Found Sound project curated by Welmoed Laanstra.
Using computer generated imagery displayed on LCD screens and projections, Morse programs complex systems that allow abstract elements to interact with one another. Each visual element exists within a set of rules and those elements exist within a virtual environment built by Morse. Only the element behaviors have been pre-determined and not the movements themselves. Once the program is set in motion the outcome is unknown and uncontrollable. A tension is thus created between the artist’s invention and the generative capacity of technology.
In Run to Ground, the system is a dark, shadowy mass comprised of thousands of molecules that slowly overtake and darken five LCD screens. Like ripples from a rock being thrown into a still pond each of Morse’s molecules spread outward, their destinies intertwined, their courses and trajectories altered with each collision. In Spinnaker (the name suggests a type of sail for a boat) a black, vertical column in a white field begins to unravel and the untangled lines form triangles and other geometric forms. Eventually the entire structure disintegrates and then slowly crumbles.
The programs themselves and the way that they behave may serve as a better indicator of conceptual foundations than the visuals alone. Each of the pieces begins in a state of order, devolves into a period of chaos, and ends in the absolute disintegration of the system itself. Morse states that, “systems are created whose sole purpose is to come undone, one population is overrun by another, objects yield to the undeniable forces for their environment.”
There will be an opening reception Friday, March 17th from 6-8pm. The artist will be in attendance.