Morse's Code
Tiny particles, given movement and behavior directives by an unknown source, are suddenly released to the elements. They charge ahead, encountering one another and reacting and creating new shapes and patterns in their wake. Each time they move, the environment changes, entropy increases, and eventually the entire system devolves into chaos.
These are the miniature universes created by artist Brandon Morse, whose video exhibit Static opened Friday at the Connor Contemporary Art. Morse generates each one by designing abstract figures and programming them with a set of rules for interactions. As the system unfolds, the figures – spirals, lines, dots, squiggly things – behave as they're told during a single encounter, but the end result is one of infinite possibilities.
Spinnaker (pictured) is especially nice because it is projected onto an entire wall space, rather than displayed on an LCD panel like the other videos in the show. In this piece a tightly bound, intricately woven spiral begins to unravel at the bottom. As the ‘threads’ become loose and fall away, they land on the growing pile underneath, bending and reacting to the movement, creating entirely new shapes as the spiral finally dissolves.
Though the programs can seem like Big Bang models, Morse has described them as working on a much smaller scale. Each video can be viewed as a geometric representation of human interaction at its most basic level. So the person walking down the sidewalk, seeing streetlights or a friend or a dangerous situation makes decisions that might lead him or her down an infinite number of paths, becomes the particle that bumps and shifts and changes direction each time it encounters another particle during its short life in Morse’s universe.
If psychology and cosmology aren't your thing, you still won’t be disappointed by this show. The images are mesmerizing as you watch the simple shapes create complex patterns. Unfortunately, the programs are looped on DVDs to save the gallery from investing in some mega-computers to constantly re-run the programs so that we could watch those infinite possibilities unfold. On the other hand, each video loops for around 15 to 20 minutes, so you can still spend a good deal of time at the exhibit admiring an artistic mind that seems to have packed so much into so little space.
Conner Contemporary Art is located at 1730 Connecticut Avenue, NW – 2nd Floor. The gallery is open Tuesday-Saturday 10 a.m. -5 p.m. Static will run until April 29.