FOREST KELLEY
2017-Present

Paradise

In this ongoing project, I deconstruct the architectures of template-based webpages and plugins, obfuscating their intended functions while fracturing, retooling, and revealing aspects of their underlying forms. I treat the structures of this software as material, reprogramming them to highlight features that would otherwise be imperceptible. Components designed for seamless user interaction—such as image carousels or button animations—are appropriated and recast as aesthetic systems rather than functional tools.

By pushing these systems beyond their intended parameters, their concealed mechanics become visible: transitions stretch into perceptible events, automated behaviors shed their gloss of efficiency, and familiar interface elements dissolve into gradients, color fields, and other forms of visual drift. These distortions draw attention to the internal logics we interact with daily yet rarely perceive, revealing the skeletal structures that support the illusion of smooth usability.

The works are accompanied by generative sound compositions created with my own boutique software, which adopts coding practices common in web development rather than frameworks used for standalone audio tools. My software takes tools designed for straightforward web-audio tasks—such as triggering a sound file or managing playback—and expands them into complex, algorithmic behaviors. In doing so, the system exposes traces of its own operational logic, allowing the mechanics of its decision-making to become audible. At times, these algorithms make unusual or imperfect choices, revealing a kind of structural vulnerability that parallels the visual works' exposure of their own underlying scaffolding.

Forest Kelley, Paradise: Installation view, Platform Specters, HyCP Veddel (Hyper Cultural Passengers), Hamburg, Germany, 2024. Featured exhibition of the 48h Wilhelmsburg sound and music festival
01 Paradise 01
5:22
02 Paradise 02
4:33
03 Paradise 03
5:15
04 Paradise 04
4:44

Installation view, Platform Specters, HyCP Veddel (Hyper Cultural Passengers), Hamburg, Germany, 2024. Featured exhibition of the 48h Wilhelmsburg sound and music festival

HyCP Veddel, 2024

The most recent version of Paradise was shown in Platform Specters at HyCP Veddel (Hyper Cultural Passengers) in Hamburg, Germany, in 2024, a featured exhibition of the 48h Wilhelmsburg sound and music festival. Rather than a collection of screen works, it was an immersive installation: alongside individual screen and projection works, projections spread across the walls, windows, and surfaces of the space. The installation also included a generative sound work. I made and adapted many of the animations for the space during a residency at HyCP before the exhibition.

Forest Kelley, Paradise: Installation view, Platform Specters, HyCP Veddel, Hamburg, Germany, 2024

Installation view, Platform Specters, HyCP Veddel, Hamburg, Germany, 2024

Forest Kelley, Paradise: Installation view, Platform Specters, HyCP Veddel, Hamburg, Germany, 2024

Installation view, Platform Specters, HyCP Veddel, Hamburg, Germany, 2024

Forest Kelley, Paradise: Installation view, Platform Specters, HyCP Veddel, Hamburg, Germany, 2024

Installation view, Platform Specters, HyCP Veddel, Hamburg, Germany, 2024

Forest Kelley, Paradise: Installation view, Platform Specters, HyCP Veddel, Hamburg, Germany, 2024

Installation view, Platform Specters, HyCP Veddel, Hamburg, Germany, 2024

Live Webpages

The works below are not recordings. Each is a live webpage running in your browser, built from template plugins—image sliders, galleries, and transition effects—that I have taken apart and reprogrammed, so they keep changing as they run. They are best seen full screen or in a new tab, and can be paired with the soundtracks above.

EYE-24-480-2610, 2017–2026. Live webpage: code-based visuals

PXD-MSR1-1013-2610, 2017–2026. Live webpage: code-based visuals

PXD-STM2-1013-2610, 2017–2026. Live webpage: code-based visuals

PXD-MRD2-1013-2610, 2017–2026. Live webpage: code-based visuals

CDR-37-8010-2610, 2017–2026. Live webpage: code-based visuals

GMY-08-10-2610, 2017–2026. Live webpage: code-based visuals

PXD-CSL40-DSK-2610, 2026. Live webpage: code-based visuals

CDR-SPD37-07-2610, 2026. Live webpage: code-based visuals

ATHICA, 2018

An early version of Paradise was installed in Emerges: Collaborations at the Athens Institute for Contemporary Art (ATHICA) in Athens, Georgia, in 2018. The visuals were animated color gradients, and the screens faced walls, floors, and corners rather than the viewer, washing the surrounding space in shifting light. Eight computers each played their own generative sound, together forming a kind of biophonic environment, closer to the layered sound of a natural habitat than to a single composition.

Forest Kelley, Paradise: Installation view, Emerges: Collaborations, Athens Institute for Contemporary Art, Athens, GA, 2018. Curated by Kira Hegeman and Jon Vogt

Installation view, Emerges: Collaborations, Athens Institute for Contemporary Art, Athens, GA, 2018. Curated by Kira Hegeman and Jon Vogt. My works are the computer, screen, and speaker pieces; work by Megan Burchett, Maddie Zerkel, Jonathan Quinn Nowell, and Alexis Spina also appears in the photographs

Forest Kelley, Paradise: Installation view, Emerges: Collaborations, Athens Institute for Contemporary Art, 2018
Forest Kelley, Paradise: Installation view, Emerges: Collaborations, Athens Institute for Contemporary Art, 2018
Forest Kelley, Paradise: Installation view, Emerges: Collaborations, Athens Institute for Contemporary Art, 2018
Forest Kelley, Paradise: Installation view, Emerges: Collaborations, Athens Institute for Contemporary Art, 2018
Forest Kelley, Paradise: Installation view, Emerges: Collaborations, Athens Institute for Contemporary Art, 2018
Forest Kelley, Paradise: Installation view, Emerges: Collaborations, Athens Institute for Contemporary Art, 2018
Forest Kelley, Paradise: Installation view, Emerges: Collaborations, Athens Institute for Contemporary Art, 2018
Forest Kelley, Paradise: Installation view, Emerges: Collaborations, Athens Institute for Contemporary Art, 2018
Forest Kelley, Paradise: Installation view, Emerges: Collaborations, Athens Institute for Contemporary Art, 2018
Forest Kelley, Paradise: Installation view, Emerges: Collaborations, Athens Institute for Contemporary Art, 2018
Forest Kelley, Paradise: Installation view, Emerges: Collaborations, Athens Institute for Contemporary Art, 2018
Forest Kelley, Paradise: Installation view, Emerges: Collaborations, Athens Institute for Contemporary Art, 2018
Forest Kelley, Paradise: Installation view, Emerges: Collaborations, Athens Institute for Contemporary Art, 2018
Paradise 01