Benjamin Samuel: Arrays of Light

The works of Benjamin Samuel (b. Frankfurt am Main, 1981; lives and works in Frankfurt and London) explore our reverence for the allembracing intellectual gifts we associate with Renaissance men as well as our understanding of the modern digital world. Benjamin Samuel takes inspiration from favorites such as the movies of Alfred Hitchcock and Stanley Kubrick, Bach’s Goldberg Variations, and Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations, but also from Shakespeare’s plays and Edgar Allan Poe’s stories, the comic books in the Adventures of Asterix and the Adventures of Tintin series, and the stock markets. Condensed into black dashes and dots, letters, notes, or digits on white paper, the data the artist extracts is fed into algorithms of his own devising to yield an explosive play of colors on backlit strips of slide film. With a preface by Henry Keazor and conversations between Benjamin Samuel and artists who engage with similar themes: the New Yorkbased jazz pianist Uri Caine, the British translator Anthea Bell, and the film historian Dan Auiler.