AXIOM & SIMULATION examines the ways in which humans quantify our natural surroundings through the use of scientific and digital means. As a developed global culture, we are constantly transforming elements of our physical environment into abstracted non-physical calculations in order to gain a greater understanding of our complex surroundings. These transformations often take form through mathematical or scientific interpretations and as a result, the referent becomes a clouded and distant entity. When the calculated representation is compared to its real counterpart, an arbitrary and disconnected relationship is created in which there is very little or no physical or visual connection at all thus resulting in questions of definition – data vs. object and macroscopic vs. microscopic.

When observing a three dimensional rendering of a mountainside, it holds the familiar form to what we experience in nature, but has no physical connection to reality whatsoever – it is merely a file on a computer that has no mass and only holds likeness to a memory. Moving in even further, when translating the file into the most basic of computer programing codes, binary code, we see just 1’s and 0’s – a series of numbers creating representation from a language composed of only two elements that have no grounding in the natural world. These transformations generate, literally, a new reality – one without its original referent, a copy with no definitive source.

These planes of existence however, do run parallel to our own physical existence. These digital worlds are becoming ever present in our lives as technology continues to progress through math, science, personal computers, and the Internet. This transformation, manipulation, and breakdown of information is exactly what dilutes our primary understanding of the world we inhabit and inevitably leads us to create these new planes of existence and a digitally quantified perception.

Mark Dorf grew up in Louisville, Kentucky and graduated from The Savannah College of Art and Design with a B.F.A in Photography and Sculpture. Employing a mix of photography and digital media, Dorf’s work explores the post-analogue experience - society’s interactions with the digital world and its relationship to our natural origins. Dorf scrutinizes the influence of the information age, and explores his theme through a combination of photography and digital media, examining in his most recent works how we encounter, translate, and understand our surroundings through the filter of science, math and technology. Mark seeks to understand our curious habitation of the 21st century world through the juxtaposition of nature and the digital domain.

Dorf has exhibited internationally including at Outlet Gallery, Brooklyn, 2015; The Lima Museum of Contemporary Art, Lima, 2014; Mobile World Centre, Barcelona, 2014; Harbor Gallery, New York, 2014; SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah, 2013; and Phoenix Gallery, New York, 2012. Dorf’s work is included in the Savannah College of Art and Design permanent collection. Mark Dorf lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

http://mdorf.com