C_tvB01, 2021, pencil on paper, 63x47cm (detail)

"On the table in front of me lies a large sheet of blank paper. I start drawing with a very fine pencil. Tiny shapes and fine lines. There is no preconceived plan of what I want to draw, but there are a few rules. The procedure is simple. I draw tiny graphic elements that I link together. One by one. Slowly. I copy the same shape over and over again. This creates subtle variations in a fine-mesh structure. The shapes vary from time to time. My arsenal is limited: a triangle, a circle, a line. The number of rules I use is limited as well. Triangle next to triangle, connecting circles with lines. This happens spontaneously, like automatic writing. A stripped-down version of the écriture automatique used by surrealists. Instead of choosing freely from an inexhaustible source of various shapes that emerge from the unconscious, I am open to respond logically to the previously drawn. A form of organic growth. A process in which the drawing itself determines the drawing."

"The drawings I make are based on the principle of self-organisation. A term derived from network theory. Intuitively I have found a procedure in which the process of drawing is self-organising: an emergent phenomenon occurs during my drawing process. Since I discovered this, it has led to a turnaround in my work, in which processes with emergent properties are central."

Harm van den Berg (1970) investigates the concepts of emergence, complexity, and self-organisation in a multidisciplinary manner. Harm lives and works in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. He received his BA from the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam in 1996. He has performed at different venues including museum The Paviljoens in Almere (NL), Zoo Gallery, Nantes (FR), Galeria Klovicevi, Zagreb (HR) and the Crossing Border Festival, Amsterdam (NL). His work has been exhibited at venues including Kunstvereniging Diepenheim, Goethe Institute Amsterdam, Netherlands Media Art Institute, W139, Arti et Amicitiae, Amsterdam, De Voorkamer, Lier (B) and AC Institute, New York City (USA). He has received grants from the Mondrian Fund and Amsterdam Fund for the Arts.

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