ARTISTS TALK | CHRIS ORR

Chris Orr's current practice dissects the very hardware that powers and dominates our lives – computer motherboards. By physically deconstructing these machines and scanning their micro components at ultra-high resolution, Chris reimagines their intricate structures as mosaic patterns, tribal in form and deeply symbolic in presence.

These patterns are then layered over antique engravings, creating a kind of visual terraforming – a cartographic intervention that overlays the past with the circuitry of the present. In this fusion, the once-static figures and landscapes of old engravings are reanimated. The rhythmic pulse of motherboard fragments generates a new kind of life; a swelling synergy that imbues the image with energy, movement, and narrative. What emerges is a patternated scape, a hybrid visual language where memory, machine, and myth converge.

This ongoing fascination with motherboards arrives at a potent juncture in the evolution of art, when artificial intelligence is cannibalising it. This creates…