About

Dane Worrallo is an artist, researcher, lecturer and writer based in the West Midlands, U.K. His work is spread across a number of disciplines and mediums, from art, philosophy, science and mathematics, and so producing a summary that encapsulates these diverse interests may not be adequate to capture the rich diversity of what he does.

Dane’s first concern is primarily as an artist. Graduating with a BA (Hons.) in Fine Art from Staffordshire University (2011), and subsequently an MA in Fine Art from Birmingham City University (2013). Dane has experimented and produced work in a variety of mediums, including drawing, photography, and new media. Dane is currently in the process of submitting his PhD thesis, also at Birmingham City University, entitled Figuring the Materiality of the Algorithm: The Undecidable Iterations of Digital Arts Practices. It was during the development of his PhD that Dane focused on developing his art practice towards the digital medium. From the start of his PhD, Dane self-taught himself to code and create artwork through this medium, exploring the materiality of the digital as it becomes entangled with events and concepts, and in this state how the algorithm can influence and affect them.

Dane’s research is intertwined with his art practice: such practice is a major form of his research. Continuing the trajectories that have taken flight throughout his PhD, he is continuing to explore the effects of digital processes on other forms of practices. The impetus for Dane’s research is found in the origins of digital computing and the paradoxes of mathematics, originating in the works of Kurt Gödel and Alan Turing, amongst others. Although their conclusions are different, both agree on seeking solutions to problems present at the limits of systems in a diverse range of practices.

Dane’s writing traces a lineage present in contemporary art from the works of the Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.) group and their associates, to the accessibility of digital processes as a material for artists through open-source projects that open up access to coding to all artists, providing them with the ability to affect and disrupt the algorithms that are intertwined with all the processes of contemporary existence. Augmenting Dane’s artwork is his in-depth knowledge on philosophy: from the classical philosophy of Leibniz, whose interdisciplinary work mirrors his own, to the contemporary works of Deleuze and Lyotard, amongst others. Dane also has an intense interest in existentialist philosophy, particularly the works of Soren Kierkegaard, and his influence on the work of more contemporary philosophers such as Wittgenstein. The contrast of Leibniz’s rational optimism and Kierkegaard’s existential despair creates a strange space in which Dane attempts to navigate.

Dane has exhibited across the U.K., and worked alongside philosophers, dancers, and poets. Other experience includes being the research arts editor for the international research journal Zetesis, and managing the Birmingham School of Art’s publishing branch, ARTicle Press. Dane has also worked as a lecturer on the “Media Arts Philosophy Practice” (MAPP) course as part of the Arts Based Masters at Birmingham City University, using his expertise at the intersections of digital art and philosophy to provide artists with the critical thinking necessary to explore how their artwork has a material impact in the contexts it is deployed in.

One of Dane’s most long-standing projects is his film review series, in which he reviews a (usually) science-fiction film every week. Since starting this project in 2012, he has reviewed over three hundred films from all over the world, ranging to Hollywood blockbusters, to low-budget disasters. This project has no end in sight, and it can be surmised that Dane will eventually know every way to defeat any form of alien invasion, zombie outbreak, or mutant creature.

Dane’s biggest passion, however, is probably his comics. Having taken a hiatus to complete his PhD, he is now in the process of launching his two online webcomics: W.I.S.P.A. and Sealers Stories. Both have existed in various iterations since he was a child, and Dane is now working to launch them with everything he has learned since. Dane does all the aspects of these comics, from writing, drawing, colouring, editing and lettering, so it employs a range of techniques and processes, all of which Dane thoroughly enjoys.