Cloud Writings — Takuro Someya Contemporary Art, Tokyo, 2026

Exhibition: harm.work/exhibition/cloud-writings. Opened 14 February 2026. Photographs: Shu Nakagawa. The artist's statement is reproduced on Upstream Gallery's site.

The exhibition

The gallery announced Cloud Writings as van den Dorpel's "first solo exhibition at the gallery", with "new pieces unveiled for the first time in Japan": "algorithmic drawings shaped by his generative practice and the ideas of female artists active in minimalism and conceptual art in the late 20th century." He had shown at Takuro Someya Contemporary Art before, in the 2022 group exhibition Okazaki, Sakamoto, van den Dorpel, Murayama. Goro Murayama later sent him three questions about the mandala works in the show (→ Mandala Q&A).

The exhibition took its title from Cloud Writings, an ongoing series of plotter drawings that premiered in Angles Morts (LOHAUS SOMINSKY, Munich, 2024) (harm.work). Of that series it showed Current and Girl/Boy Song. The other works are the plotter drawings of 2025, the Beads drawings, the Interpolation drawings on millimetre paper, two generative works on screen after Anni, and two cut paper bags.

The statement

Algorithmic archaeology. "Since 2019, I have dedicated myself to researching artists such as Anni Albers, Vera Molnár, and Charlotte Posenenske, who are known for their systematic approach in creating work with two-dimensional grids, even before the computer as we know it was invented. I develop contemporary algorithms inspired by these historical ones — a methodology I call 'algorithmic archeology'." He calls naming them "an effort to identify and honor my influences". Anni Albers (1899–1994) and Charlotte Posenenske (1930–1985) worked without computers; Vera Molnár (1924–2023) worked by rule before she had one and with computers from 1968. Pression des pairs (2024) is "inspired by the work 'Quatre éléments distribués au hasard' by Vera Molnár from 1959" (harm.work). The method, and the Spike #70 interview (2021/22) in which his description of the Mutant Garden algorithm as "algorithmic archaeology" comes up, are on Algorithmic Archaeology.

The plotter. "A plotter is a specialized mechanical device that creates precise technical and architectural drawings by moving pens or markers across paper on an X-Y axis. Unlike printers, which apply ink in lines from left to right, top to bottom, the plotter draws lines in all directions. This process gives drawings an organic quality that goes beyond the precision of digital prints. The plotter draws lines in all directions, and through its slow, mechanical movement creates unique and unrepeatable results that bring a human and unpredictable materiality to my digital works." How the line shows the process that drew it is the subject of Process Legibility.

Grid, writing, weaving. "The drawings are composed of two-dimensional grid structures: rows and columns of repeating elements. They refer to the process of writing text and the process of weaving textile." The loom as a grid of binary decisions is traced on Algorithmic Archaeology and Senescenence.

Religious and heraldic imagery. "Their designs touch on religious and heraldic imagery." It is the only place the practice names heraldry (→ Sacred Geometry). Stairs and Crosses (worn) puts two such motifs in its title.

By hand. "Some drawings I made partially by hand, which was a rich and meditative commitment for me." In the show these are Beads, Beads II and Beads III, plotter drawings coloured by hand in pencil; bead comes from Old English gebed, prayer (harm.work). Their making, and the hand-drawn Kapitulation shown in Angles Morts, are on Meditative Labour.

The works on screen. "Besides plotted works on paper, I have installed multiple digital works on screen to give insight into the inner workings of the algorithms that created the drawings, allowing the viewer to experience the potentially infinite possibilities from which the material works emerged." Anni (sync) runs the same work on one to six screens, each at a higher resolution; Anni (unravel) takes apart the generative logic of Anni (harm.work).

Works and titles

Nethermind and Nethermind Quilt are plotter drawings "based on an output of the Quantizer algorithm" (harm.work); the artist told Murayama he extended that algorithm to turn surfaces into lines by hatching, which is also how Anobium was made (→ Quantizer). In Nethermind square frames of hatched lines nest around a dense centre. Anobium, per harm.work, takes its title from "the most common species of woodworm, which is actually a 🪲"; its hatched field in pink and violet is broken by triangles and squares.

Leaky Abstraction takes its title from software engineering: Joel Spolsky's "law of leaky abstractions" (2002) states that "all non-trivial abstractions, to some degree, are leaky", the hidden implementation showing through. The drawing is a field of red diagonal lines with white gaps opening along the diagonals. The wiki reads the title as a name for what Process Legibility describes, the generating rule visible in the image; the artist has not commented on it. Stairs and Crosses (worn), drawn with Sakura brushes, sets zigzag stair lines in black and pink above a band of diamond-shaped crosses at the foot of the sheet.

The two bags' cut-out designs refer to a 1962 lithograph by Hans Arp (harm.work).

See also

• Mandala Q&A — Goro Murayama (2026) — the questions Murayama sent after the show
• Algorithmic Archaeology — the method the statement names; Albers, Molnár, Posenenske
• Angles Morts (2024) — where the Cloud Writings series premiered, beside Vera Molnár
• Meditative Labour — Kapitulation and the Beads drawings
• Quantizer — the algorithm behind Nethermind, Nethermind Quilt and Anobium
• Process Legibility — the plotter line and the visible rule
• Sacred Geometry — religious and heraldic imagery among the traditions the practice names
• Works Overview — the series and works in context