Brian Knep: Exempla :: until November 15, 2009 :: Koppelman Gallery, Tufts University, Medford, MA.

Brian Knep has created six related, interactive projections. In each work, hundreds of creatures are tasked with achieving a goal that proves futile yet revealing of complex social interactions. His work bridges art and science through his hypothetical microcosms of “emergent behavior” to create a kind of digital arena in which viewers activate a light source and their shadows play a decisive role in a philosophical game of illumination and illusion.

The pieces are more about futility than emergence. The works use child-like drawings to examine the illusions that drive us, in a humorous way. The creatures, with their huge, exaggerated faces and skeletal legs, are caricatures of the endlessly cycling everyman. They cover all available surfaces, reacting to our intrusions into their small worlds.