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JUN 26

OPEN

Erik Swahn

Soma

80 artworks

SOLOS

The intense chromatic bursts in Soma are partly a continuation of Erik Swahn's work with colour and abstraction, as seen in Fields (2023). At the same time, they mark a departure from his more geometrically focused work, such as Farbteiler (2021), Punktwelt (2022), and Funktor (2023). In Soma (Greek for "body"), both form and colour have dissolved into their smallest particles – a fine chromatic dust. In their place are nebulous clouds in a state of becoming, rather than possessing a final form – suggestive rather than representational. The formations in Soma simultaneously evoke anatomic, cellular, or even atomic structures of the microcosm, as well as celestial bodies of the macrocosm. The bodies in Soma are composed of colour, light and darkness. They emerge from a dark aether as embodiments of pure randomness, shaped by simple generative rules. Some appear as constellations or configurations of matter; others consist of multiple bodies, attracted and repelled by each other – some of them colliding.

APR 2024

360 artworks

In Autoscope, Erik Swahn returns to the theme of color as building material from previous series such as Farbteiler (2021), Punktwelt (2022) and Funktor (2023). His new series as a whole describes an abstract universe consisting only of color, with each piece depicting a different scene within that universe. Whereas many of Swahn's previous series have had objects as their motifs, Autoscope rather portrays places in the form of configurations of simple geometries. Mountains are implied through pyramids and cones, ocean swell through sine waves, and barren forests through arrays of cylinders. Some places are inhabited by primitive geometries moving through space. In a number of different tableaux, rendered in perspectiveless projection, the series evokes a very reduced sense of place, or perhaps recollection of place, sometimes with parts of the images blurred or distorted. In some scenes, even parts of the geometries are subject to erasure. In contrast to this barrenness, each scene is rich in saturation, movement and animated intensity, pulling the viewer into a chromatic world of its own peculiar logic. Click or press space to pause/play. Press left or right arrow to go back or forward 10 frames. Press esc to rewind to the beginning of the 60 second loop. Press 's' to save a PNG image. Press 4/6/8 to force the resolution to 4000/6000/8000 pixels height (note that different browsers have different canvas size limits). Press 0/1 to reset the resolution. Specify a forced height by adding a parameter in the format \&h=4000 to the URL and a PNG will be automatically downloaded.

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JUN 2023

Erik Swahn

Funktor

256 artworks

Each Funktor is defined by a sequence of mathematical functions called signed distance functions. This type of function describes the relationship between the interior and exterior of shapes, yielding negative or positive values depending on whether a point in space belongs to the inside or the outside of the shapes they describe, and values close to zero for points on the boundary between them. In that sense, they are like architectural drawings, only instead of lines, they use the the value zero to mark the boundaries between outside and inside - in other words, walls. A room, in this context, is therefore a region of space that return negative values when its defining function is sampled. In Funktor, a simple sequence of such functions is defined, then twice extruded and interpolated, as if going from floor to floor, with the previous level transforming into the next through simple linear interpolation. There are no surfaces, only a field of points at regular intervals, sampled in space. For values close to zero, there's a coloured dot. In that way, only the boundaries between inside and outside are visible, sometimes floating in space, sometimes standing firmly on a ground plane. You can press '1' to '5' to export PNG image files of increasing resolution. You can press 'e' to export an STL file that can be used for 3D printing, or 'o' to export an OBJ file. You can also press 'g' to export a GIF animation and 'p' to repaint the Funktor. Note that the STL and OBJ files can be very large. Funktor is part of the exhibition Generative Architecture and was written in Javascript using p5.js in 2023.

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MAR 2023

Erik Swahn

Fields

800 artworks

Prepare a rectangular or square canvas. Pick one or two sets of pigments. Plot one or two fields of slightly irregular dots, with one layer for each pigment. Offset each layer slightly, horizontally or vertically. Apply a level of randomness to the placement of each dot so that pigments in lower layers can obscure pigments in higher layers. Optionally, divide and displace the randomness in rectangular patches. Click on press the image and press 1-5 to export the image in increasing resolution. Note that browsers have different upper limits for canvas size. There are five different aspect ratios: 1:1, 5:8, 8:5, 1:2, and 2:1. Fields is part of the group exhibition Imperfections.

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