Ben Lee

CLASSIFICATION OF FRACTALS
Fractals can also be classified according to their self-similarity. There are three types of self-similarity found in fractals: 1. EXACT SELF-SIMILARITY — This is the strongest type of self-similarity; the fractal appears identical at different scales. Fractals defined by iterated function systems often display exact self-similarity. 2. QUASI SELF-SIMILARITY — This is a loose form of self-similarity; the fractal appears approximately (but not exactly) identical at different scales. Quasi-self-similar fractals contain small copies of the entire fractal in distorted and degenerate forms. Fractals defined by recurrence relations are usually quasi-self-similar but not exactly self-similar. 3. STATISTICAL SELF-SIMILARITY — This is the weakest type of self-similarity; the fractal has numerical or statistical measures which are preserved across scales. Most reasonable definitions of “fractal” trivially imply some form of statistical self-similarity. (Fractal dimension itself is a numerical measure which is preserved across scales.) Random fractals are examples of fractals which are statistically self-similar, but neither exactly nor quasi-self-similar.

My practice is engaged with the development of narratives for new geometry through the intersection of sculptural process and photographic technique. My aim is to script the generative logic inherent within the image and thus dictate the means of possible engagement. I aim to provoke reaction to the imagery presented by instigating a complexity within the image that questions the origins of the forms present through their interaction and projection onto the native environment of the site they are situated in. The development of this work has been to propose simultaneous dialogues for the viewer, to engage them with possible questions that they themselves are framing when confronted with the imagery. My aim is to find a complexity whereby the observer begins to project their own explanations, as the reality is lost amidst the impenetrability of the new geometries’ outsider context. The current production processes of making the forms within the works, follows classical sculptural techniques of casting in order to allow me to remain in touch with a physical practice, which I find important, as it allows for me, as the artist, to understand the generative logics that I am scripting from an outside perspective.     Development has been through engagement with peers and contemporaries in a collaborative initiative where those involved participate in a short duration exhibition with work produced with no pre-determined ideas. My approach here was the interrogation of a ‘non’ or ‘contested’ space; zones that we pass through or overlook completely, owing to either their over-use and high maintenance or their inaccessibility and combining this ‘conspicuous inconspicuousness’ of space with the rupture and hybridisation of geometries.  These sites often propose indeterminacy, and I am aiming to narrate the fluxes within them by the confrontations in them passing beyond conventional understanding and enter into a sublime nature in tandem with a modern gothic; belonging ‘somewhere else’, with an inherent menace portrayed within the fiction as a non-engagement in the physical now. The work presented is a further development of these narratives.   When the fissures between mind and matter multiply into an infinity of gaps, the studio begins to crumble and fall so that mind and matter get endlessly intertwined and as quoted by Descartes (1596-1650); “Give me matter and motion and I will construct the universe.” For me the studio is not the site for my practice, as the production of my work centres on a constructed narrative of observational photography and it is through documentation that the image is given apparent life.  As Groys said “The Artistic documentation, whether real or fictive, is by contrast, primarily narrative, and thus it evokes the unrepeatability of living time. The artificial can thus be made living, made natural, by means of documentation, by narrating the history of its origin, its “making”. I am trying to create a fictitious axiomatic paradigm to “remove the rigidity of thought” (Richard Feynman) that limits the quest to visualise that which lies outside our normal field of view where the formation of these new visible geometries are founded in intangible structures.   Ben Lee

soma.       …since this is not a naturally tenable position for xxxx, this poor innocent creature had very little time to come to terms with its identity as a xxxx before it then had to come to terms with not being a xxxx anymore. This is a complete record of its thoughts from the moment it began till the moment it ended.        “Ah…! What’s happening?” xxxx thought.      “Er, excuse me, who am I?      Hello?      Why am I here? What’s my purpose in life?      What do I mean by who am I?      Calm down, get a grip now…oh! this is an interesting sensation, what is it? It’s a sort of …yawning, tingling sensation in this…this…well I suppose I’d better start finding names for things if I want to make any headway in what for the sake of what I shall call an argument I shall call the world, so let’s call it monument…   [Time passes. Duration undefined.]   No. Never mind, hey, this is really exciting, so much to find out about, so much to look forward to, I’m quite dizzy with anticipation… There really is a lot of that [me] now. Isn’t there?     And the rest, after a sudden wet thud, was silence.[1]     Monument. “one would have to say they [the monument] ‘de-notice’ us…[they are the book that] will never be read to the end…” never be understood or questioned[2]. Desensitisation. The questions of who.what.where.why ‘am I’ still need answering (think of poor xxxx) but over-exposure has left us null inside “I am null! I am null!” – and it is truly null.”[3] The pornography of history has left us unable to compete and monument now screams for an attention that we can’t recognise, it simply slides from our perception. And what we need to do is question this ‘conspicuous inconspicuousness’[4], this mere shadow imprint on the fabric of the everyday.                              Ben Lee [1]              Abreviated and edited extract from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams, 1979 [2]              Quoted from Monuments, Robert Musil, 1927 [3]              Quoted from The Conspiracy of Art – Jean Baudrillard, 1996 [4]              Quoted from Monuments, Robert Musil, 1927