Philip Alden Benn

Philip Alden Benn’s work lies at the intersections of science and art, digital and analog technology, and reality and fantasy. In photographs, videos, and installations, the artist explores the overlap between technology and nature. Many of his projects begin with his trekking through what he calls “the bush of the American Southwest and California Sierra and Coastal ranges,” with still and moving cameras in hand. He manipulates the photographs he takes on these field trips, for example transforming the color of a deer’s coat from dun to aquamarine or the lichen on rocks from pale gray-green to deep teal. For his videos, Benn breaks apart his footage of nature into what he describes as “a matrix of particles,” resulting in images that appear to be composed of millions of individual grains that subtly morph before the viewer’s eye.