Bamboo Forest (LIDAR Videography), 2019, 6 minutes

Monday, December 16, 2019 from 8-10pm

Plexus Projects is pleased to present a solo exhibition of work by Ben Snell. Bamboo Forest will be featured in Vitrine, an ongoing screening series of moving image artworks.

*Please note the project space is not open during Vitrine screen hours. Projections are viewed from the sidewalk.

LIDAR is a range-sensing technology typically employed by the government and military to survey land from above. In Bamboo Forest, Ben Snell takes it out of the context in which it normally belongs in order to better understand how it sees the world. Under the cover of darkness in a bamboo forest in the Blue Ridge Mountains, Snell engages in conversation with the device. The artifacts produced through the process of capture, including the bounce of the artist’s gait, the casting of shadows and the existence of black holes, reveal a deep interconnectedness between observer and observed: a quiet window into the introspection of the machine.

Ben Snell is an artist based in New York. His practice investigates materialities and ecologies of computation. Using contemporary techniques in dialogue with traditional motifs, he situates technology as a mirror to reveal the self as a computational being. He holds a B.A. in Experiential Art and Design from Carnegie Mellon University and was recently an Artist in Residence at Pier 9 Autodesk. Earlier this year, his sculpture 'Dio' was the first AI-generated sculpture to sell at auction. His work has been featured in Artsy, Artnet, and other major publications.