Death Imitates Language

Death Imitates Language (2016–) is the series in which van den Dorpel began breeding images with a genetic algorithm. harm.work dates its online genealogy to March 2016, a few months before he began Algues Artificielles. Its source text is the series page on harm.work, ingested as Death Imitates Language — series page.

Origin

In the years before the series, van den Dorpel writes, "I was trying more and more to be an 'artist artist', someone who fitted into the gallery space and the art markets in conventional terms." It "felt a bit hollow and disconnected from the Net Art which I saw myself as coming out of." He thought about turning to programming full time, but his generative graphics "needed a bit more development and direction to add to the randomness created by the programmes."

The direction came from a video by the "programmer, philosopher and general provocateur" Vinay Gupta, who estimated that Tinder and similar apps were "responsible for essentially engineering about 10% of the dates that took place in the countries where the app was used." Van den Dorpel followed the thought to its end: if a child was conceived in one of these short relationships, "that child's biology would be, in part, algorithmically determined. The biopolitics of that were quite a lot to get my head around." It gave him the idea "that breeding aesthetic populations might also provide a way to visualise how machines understand data and 'create'."

Mechanism

The series is "a series of works exploring the development of meaning in generative aesthetics using micro feedback and a genetic algorithm", consisting of "a website and a series of printed and boxed collage works".

The website at deathimitateslanguage.harmvandendorpel.com shows the population as a grid. In this screenshot one specimen's card is open: Melton Melton Melton, "Born 4 years ago", 1,020 views, "Alive", five siblings, "Virgin", with thumbnails of its two parents; a menu item counts the "Frozen (29)".

• Population. Each work inherits "sequences of information — a sort of DNA — from its ancestors"; these codes "determine which elements appear in the work and in what form or constellation."
• Selection. The population changes "by means of subjective ('natural') selection by the artist: micro feedback or 'likes' about which of the works can live on, which ones should die, and who can procreate." The feedback is "combined with visitor statistics and simulated aging", so the public's attention enters the selection too.
• Change. Together these cause "the genetic program to mutate and (arguably) improve over time."
• Freezing. "When creatures reach their optimal state they are 'frozen' and translated into physical objects. These objects are layered in construction, partly transparent and square. They can be hung and watched from all sides."

How this criterion compares with the later ones (Hybrid Vigor .bio, Nested Exchange, Mutant Garden) is set out on Evolutionary Logic.

The names

Every specimen has a three-part name: Vuwtvvyft Zcuviey Dayssuck, Shtonk Vtejuwoh Bonifac, Hatter Epot Xgeubke. The series texts don't explain them, but the names in the population show a pattern. Siblings share their second and third names: Juancar Zolim Juancar, a frozen work of 2017, and Sydgator Zolim Juancar, a 2018 token, both end in Zolim Juancar; two other tokens end in Eve Adam. Names reappear in later positions (Bonifac in Bonifac Wasntgone Yipcxsae, Shtonk in Vpeti Jedjenn Shtonk). The wiki reads the first name as the specimen's own and the other two as its parents', so that each title records one step of the genealogy. Many of the names look like entries in a password list (Qazwsxedcrfvtgbyhnujm is a keyboard run, others are pet names and nicknames); that origin is the wiki's guess and is unconfirmed.

The title is not explained either. The wiki's reading takes it from the mechanism: meaning in the series comes after removal, from the decisions about "which ones should die". No source connects the title to Oscar Wilde's "Life imitates Art".

Physical works

The frozen specimens of 2016–17 are wall objects of 100×100 cm, 2 to 4 cm deep: Vvgdamn Pipikaka Yozdczmi (2017) is a "UV Print on CNC multi layered acrylic glass, packaging foil". Big Pablo Ferenc Zatlas (2021) is an "UltraChrome print on CNC perforated German Etching Hahnemühle paper, framed", 100×100 cm.

Shtonk Vtejuwoh Bonifac was one of three wall objects shown, with Autobreeder, in the group exhibition Wer nicht denken will, fliegt raus at Museum Kurhaus Kleve (2016), curated by Heinrich Dietz and Harald Kunde.

In Asking for a Friend at Narrative Projects, London (2017), Autobreeder was shown with Juancar Zolim Juancar (2017) and four Algues Artificielles prints of 2016; Big Pablo Ferenc Zatlas in Mutant Garden (Upstream Gallery Amsterdam, 2021) and Context Switch (Galerie Noah Klink, 2022).

The series is included in Rhizome's Net Art Anthology.

Autobreeder

Autobreeder (2016) is "fullscreen software" that "autosurfs the massive genealogy" of the project, "containing the entire population, bred by a genetic algorithm, and selected by micro-feedback of the artist": "offline, duration infinite, not interactive, silent, macOS" (harm.work). Where the website asks for decisions, Autobreeder only shows the result of them. In 2018 van den Dorpel also sold specimens of the population as Ethereum tokens, an episode described on Protocol, Taste, and Systems.

See also

• Evolutionary Logic — the fitness functions compared; death as selection pressure
• Algues Artificielles — the other genetic-algorithm series of 2016
• Protocol, Taste, and Systems — taste as protocol; the 2018 tokens
• Impulse, Risk, and Method — the return to programming
• Randomness and Pattern — randomness that needs a direction
• The Generative Threshold — the series in the longer line from Dissociations to Quantizer
• Limit Experience — selection read through Bataille