Gorgeous Digital Sculptures Resemble Extraterrestrial Coral Reefs

Andreas Nicolas Fischer's series "Brute Force Method" look like an underwater fantasy world built through Python Script.

by Nadja Sayej

July 7, 2014, 3:00pm

As part of a group show called Synthetisch Vernünftig featuring seven artists who focus on "new materialism" (things we can see but are not actually physical), artist Andreas Nicolas Fischer has created a series of digital sculptures on a cloth backdrop that strike a resemblance to still life paintings—if they were made by futuristic aliens from another dimension.

Fischer's work comes from a series of 300 images created and posted on the artist’s Tumblrunder the name Brute Force Method. The images are all emerald green, a deep royal blue and copper and almost look like varnish-drenched coral reefs. There are hints of purple, but the most interesting parts are pieced together with gridded green moss. It’s like an underwater fantasy world built entirely on Python Script or manually sewn together with a pen tablet. “It all comes down to imitating nature with something than can be broken down into a formula,” says Fischer.

Of the 300-plus images from Fischer's Tumblr, the ones the artist actually printed out and exhibited were picked based on the on the number of reblogs and likes in a month (which ranged anywhere between 20 to 5,500 notes). Along with the three prints, a new series will be started while the exhibition runs, which shows how the images are rendered in real time.

"I see my work as a dialog between the digital material and myself, which is in permanent fluctuation," says Fischer. He compared his relationship with the digital to an essay by Manuel DeLandas titled "Emergence, Causality and Realism," explaining, "I see the digital as 'Matter endowed with morphogenetic traits of its own,' as there is an inherent quality of software which goes beyond what one can control."

He added that this idea of morphogenetic matter created by somewhat-autonomous computer systems is reflected in Brute Force Method, as his experiments yield "An endless array of visual combinations that get evaluated not only be me, but by an online audience."

The crowd-sourced curation process of Brute Force Method gives an interesting spin on new materialism. Images posted on Tumblr may be something we can see, but aren't physical. Yet, by turning the Internet's favorites in this digital series into physical works, new materialism may be as complicated as these computer generated reefs actually look.