bitforms gallery

PROCESS/DRAWING
CASEY REAS ET AL.
4 March – 2 April 2005

The work in Process/Drawing employs ideas explored in conceptual and minimal artworks as focused through the contemporary lens of C.E.B Reas, a member of a new generation of artists using software as their preferred medium.

Reas’s software and images are derived from short text instructions explaining processes which define networks. The instructions are expressed in different media including natural language, machine code, computer simulations, and static images. Each translation reveals a different perspective on the process and combines with the others to form a more complete representation. He employs the paradox in the qualitative nature of human perception and the quantitative rules which define digital culture. Relations are created between evolved natural systems and engineered synthetic systems. Organic form emerges from precise mechanical structures. Strict minimal rules are tempered with intuition to form dense kinetic surfaces.

This show evolved from the {Software} Structures project commissioned by the Whitney Museum of American Art by Christiane Paul (http://artport.whitney.org/commissions/softwarestructures/). This project explored potential relationships between the wall drawings of Sol LeWitt and the exploratory software of C.E.B. Reas.

Process/Drawing includes collaborative works with Doug Bennett and Ben Fry.

Reas has exhibited and lectured in Europe, Asia, and the United States and his work has recently shown at Telic (Los Angeles), ZKM (Karlsruhe), Künstlerhaus (Vienna), P.S.1, [DAM] (Berlin), SplitConnect (Split, Croatia), Whitney Museum of American Art Artport, Danish Film Institute (Copenhagen), La Mole Antonelliana (Turin), and the bitforms gallery (New York). His work has been featured at festivals including Sonic Acts (Amsterdam), Microwave (Hong Kong), Ars Electronica (Linz), and Sónar (Barcelona) and has been published in IDN (Hong Kong), a mínima (Spain), Übersee (Berlin), and ROJO (Barcelona).

For more information, please visit http://reas.com

Reas is an assistant professor in the Design | Media Arts department at UCLA. He received his MS degree in Media Arts and Sciences from MIT.