Softcrash is part of an ongoing series made using BeamNg.drive, a video game known for its ability to produce realistic car crashes. By pushing the limits of the engine, Smith forces the game to visualize situations that would be impossible in the real world. The software often produces wild, almost organically chaotic shapes, coupled with uncanny twitching movements that afford them a sense of liveliness. The artist calls these phenomena crashforms
Brenton Alexander Smith’s practice emerged from an interest in the relationship between humans and machines. His work explores the point of connection and disconnection between humans and the artificial in the cycle of technological renewal. He frequently draws from abandoned and damaged technical artifacts, such as crashed cars, to create works that seek to elicit an affective response in the viewer. Many of his works aim to arouse feelings of sympathy for broken or discarded machines. Smith’s practice takes form in a variety of media. In several works, the residue of car accidents acts as a sculptural material that echoes the organic through mechanical forms. These sculptures are part relic and part creature, inert yet imbued with a faint sense of liveliness. Smith graduated from the Sydney College of the Arts with honours in 2014. Since then, he completed an artist residency in Iceland, where he held his first solo exhibition at the Akureyri Art Museum. The same year Smith received the Freedman Foundation Travelling scholarship. He is currently working on an MFA at UNSW Art and Design in Sydney.
LINK: Brenton Alexander Smith
