About my work:
I make works of art whose creation is entirely determined by the conditions of the environment in which they are situated. These installations are mostly architectural in character and make use of the entire room in which they are constructed, which is why they are large in scale. The process of creation of these installations has come to be an important component of the work itself. In addition, my most recent works are time-related. I will take my work ‘Schakels’ [Links](2006) as an example to elucidate this process.
I created the work ‘Schakels’ when I was invited for the ’10,000 euro show’ in w139 Art centre, curated by Constant Dullaart. Looking for leads in the various spaces of the basement of the Post CS building (the temporary location for w139) I chanced upon the modular ceiling in the bar room of w139. It did not take long to conceive the idea of using this material to construct a new installation, partly because the bar room was to be redecorated anyway.
After removing the entire modular ceiling, I moved all its components to the exhibition room. There I found that the size of one ceiling module exactly matched that of the concrete columns in that room (60x60cm). I built the entire installation on the basis of this one fact. Opposite each column I constructed a copy of that column from the ceiling modules and the metal strips of the ceiling. Next, I connected the four ‘artificial’ columns to the four concrete columns with a connecting wall of the aforementioned material. Strengthening the existing architecture was the guiding principle of this project.
The spotlights and striplights of the modular ceiling were incorporated in this installation as well. I placed the light boxes in such a way that each part of the room would receive its own lighting. Finding the light too static and seeking a counterreaction to my own severe and logical architecture (and that of the exhibition room itself), I programmed the lights using computer controlled relays. The entire programme lasted 19 minutes and was then repeated (looped). I also incorporated a number of the light boxes already present in the exhibition room. This made me even more the director of the room, with the sound of the striplights switching on and off as a subtle overtone.
The work ‘De Pekelzaal’ [The Brining Room](2006) was a continuation of my endeavour to strengthen my ideas through light. In the former brining room of the dairy factory of the KIK Foundation in Kolderveen [ Domestic Studios Fund of the Dutch Foundation for Visual Arts] I took the supporting structure of the ceiling as my starting point. By suspending from them two layers of beams of the same size, 130 in all, the existing structure was emphasized visually. I put motion sensors on the bottom layer of suspended beams. The motion sensors switched on the lights for five seconds, temporarily indicating the route traversed by visitors. This installation was inspired by the exhibition’s theme: ‘Travel across My Room’.
Apart from installations I made video work, based on the same ideas as described before: strengthening the conditions already physically present in the room and emphasizing these. In the case of the video work ‘The Traffic Collection’ (2005), the video is framed by physical space, the passing traffic the subject. The passing traffic is collected outside the video image, forming a spiral around it. The video is getting smaller and smaller to make way for the ever growing collection of vehicles. After 12 minutes there is a zoom into the video image and the video starts again. These 12 minutes were recorded in real time, I did no editing in the video itself, it is as it was at that particular moment.
This touches on the essence of my work: emphasizing what is already present so the viewer will look again. With that I do not only mean physical conditions, but also, for instance, other conditions such as the theme of an exhibition or art institutions that want to do something with their bar room. Seeing what you are offered at a given moment and making the most of it.
