Humans often look for divine meaning in shapes and patterns – sacred geometry informing churches, pyramids and upright stones built to connect our world to higher powers. Guided by an invisible logic, crystals bloom; galaxies and black holes spin into existence. The installation ‘Foreign Nature’ by artist Julius Horsthuis provokes the feeling of being in front of the inner workings of the universe.
In ‘Foreign Nature’, installed until 3 September at the Next Museum in Amsterdam, Julius Horsthuis uses computer-generated fractals. Fractals are the result of various mathematical formulae. He visualises them using Mandelbulb3D – a piece of software whose creator remains a mystery, codenamed “Jesse”. These shapes are natural objects – they are self-similar, in other words: whether you zoom in or out, the code that defines them seems to recreate the whole. When the micro mirrors the macro scale (atom → cell → solar system) it is impossible to discern. Horsthuis sees his practice less like that of a painter, architect or their digital equivalents – but more like a naturalist or documentarian. The spaces he encounters are not created, but explored and captured. They are discovered by navigating these alien landscapes and sci-fi cathedrals and composing a scene within them. The formulas themselves are not the creation of mathematicians, but their discovery.
‘Foreign Nature’ involves the whole body – a totally immersive experience that behaves like a drug saturating the bloodstream – leading to all kinds of sensations. The visuals evoke those described by people who have experienced altered states of consciousness: psychonauts who use LSD or DMT to access higher planes of existence. Today, technology is the psychoactive – mathematical formulas can be used to visualise this source code beyond the senses. To this end, the soundtrack itself was made specifically for the work by Ben Lukas Boysen.
by Eduado Quive
