Social media have made a name for themselves in society. For many, a life without is barely conceivable. How does art relate to social media? Artists are, as with the introduction of photography and video, first at the scene to explore the (artistic) possibilities of the medium. But also to critically examine and question them. Reason enough for Kunstenlab to ask me as a guest curator for an exhibition on this topic. Not only because I’m an artist, designer, curator and owner of a record label, but also as early and frequent social media user.

The exhibition ‘#isthemessage’ shows a kaleidoscopic and intriguing image of social media and the phenomena triggered by them. For example, Christopher Baker makes you aware of the nature of tweets in his Murmur Study, Birgit Bachler lets you listen to the Internet and examines an anonymous communication network in physical public with The Discrete Dialogue Network, Philipp Teister made the login of his personal Facebook profile known in his Facebook Life Sharing project and Nicholas Felton (also graphic designer of the new Facebook Timeline) shows very personal infographics in his Annual Reports.

As with other media, it is primarily how, why and by whom social media are used that matters. The exhibition is the result of research into a multitude of different perspectives from which social media can be viewed: e.g. psychology, identity, communication, utopia, altruism, social criticism, corporate business, data mining, marketing, revolution, democratization (of art) and – somewhat obvious – privacy. The exhibition ‘#isthemessage’ opens new ways to experience the power of social media and to ask critical questions about the place these media have in our lives.

Given the particular subject of this exhibition I decided not to fill the entire exhibition to leave room for a social aspect. The public can contribute and participate by mailing directly to the printer that is installed in the exhibition area (starting December 17 to isthemessage@hpeprint.com) or be a guest curator of this input by making a personal selection of the prints accumulating on the floor. Of course, participation via Twitter (#isthemessage) and this Facebook wall is also possible.

I created the website hashtagisthemessage.net for this exhibition. Usable as an online version of a catalogue. In the middle column you’ll find an additional selection of works, which can be found online. This website will be updated once more with all added content and data obtained during the exhibition.

The opening of #isthemessage takes place on Sunday 18 December at 16:00 with the participation of De Bubbelebim, an (anti)literary and absurd theater-stage-performance-viduo from Rotterdam. De Bubbelebim appears to have something to say about sociale media as well.

I decided to go with tree trunks (how can you go wrong with lumber?) and contacted IJsellandschap to provide me with a local harvest of trees. It took some time but eventually I had four weighty pieces of wood I could work with (thank you Gerben). I removed the bark, chisseled square holes in the logs and fitted them with four classic coffee table legs each. I planed the seating area and surface milled the provided texts (by hand).

Oh well, you can see the results in the pictures below.

Special thanks go out to Josien in ‘t Hof (at Kunstenlab) and Ap Haverslag (for initiating the Landtonen project, helping me with the positioning of the benches and providing me with all sorts of insights in the local community of Okkenbroek).

I just received a message telling me that Wegwerk is on display in an exhibition hosted by Eerst! and Filter in Tetem, Enschede. There will be a party on Friday the 3rd of September. Multitupper might be on display during this party. Both Wegwerk and Multitupper were already in the collection of Eerst!, a nice art-store initiative in Enschede.

Update: The exhibition is cancelled due to heavy rain fall. The party is still on… for now.

There are three works, they are all untitled. Basically they are short sentences in fine print on a black surface (40 cm x 50 cm). Because of the glass in the frames these black surfaces turn into very effective mirrors (as you can see). The typography is so small that you have to get real close to be able to read them.

I think the contemplative nature of these prints works very well in conjuncture with the vast space of the church they are in now. There is also sufficient approaching distance. Someone said they made him think of empty flatscreen monitors at first. I hadn’t noticed that visual link before, but I think I’m quite happy with it.

I focussed on making short, multi-layered texts, open for personal interpretation. Which was actually a lot harder then I had imagined. Then I started thinking about the best visual presentation for the texts. Designed to spark a train of thought.

So far I have four prints that work for me. All of them are 50 x 40 cm. in size, printed in black on white paper and are framed behind glass (I needed reflections).

Three of them are based on the same principal idea and are to be shown at Toegang Vrij in The Bergkerk soon. I didn’t have time to document these prints yet, but due to the reflections of the glass and the subtleness of the prints, they are going to be extremely difficult to photograph correctly, so you’re better of seeing them in real life anyway. Just go there!

The fourth print is a bit of an oddball really… ‘Oneliner galore’ can somehow be construed as a graphical interpretation or titlework for this new series of short sentences. It is quite different from all the others I keep coming up with, but I felt it deserved it’s own print. When looking at it up close for some time, the lines and the letters seem to come alive… The photo’s below (yes, that’s me and my studio in the reflection) don’t have the same hypnotizing effect as looking at the real thing, but I wanted to give you a general idea, so here it is:

From May 29 until June 27, 82 Deventer artists (including me) present themselves at the Salon in the Bergkerk, Deventer. In the weekend of 19/20 June, 62 of these artists (including me) also open their studio for the public in the Atelierroute. Both Salon and Atelierroute are a part of Toegang Vrij, organised by Kunstenlab once every two years.

All participating artists are mentioned in a free magazine, including their studio adresses and a map. The opening of Toegang Vrij is on the 28th of May, 20:00 hrs. You’re welcome! Check here for more details (in dutch).

I made some brand new works for the exhibition in the Bergkerk. I’ll probably post them here soon, although I’m not sure if I can get the essence of this work across through the internet… I’ll try to get some decent photo documentation.

I now have some new documentation available; photo’s and video by Sandrijn. Hence this new post.

More photo’s overhere.

And here’s a video registration of our installation. It’s an edit, the complete registration is about 36 minutes. Due to compression for online use this isn’t the best possible view I’m affraid… but it still gives a reasonable impression. In case you’re wondering, you’re looking at a projection on a wall. Tip: hook up some descent speakers or headphones, before playing. Some of the frequencies are very low.

For the bonus experiment below we removed the mirror from our installation setting. This considerably reduces the light output and therefore it needs a fully darkened room (which wasn’t available in R10 by daytime) to be effective. But the interference patterns are totally different (and beautiful!), so I wanted to show you this early development in possible future projects anyway. Again, not the best video quality and this time there’s no sound.

Jeannette and me decided it was time to let go of J’ee-haw!, our collaborative art project moniker. There haven’t been any new J’ee-haw! projects since 2005 and 5 years of coma should be enough to pull the plug… right?

I’m now taking steps to take down the J’ee-haw! website and release the jee-haw.nl domain. All J’ee-haw! projects are also archived on this website, just do a jee-haw search.

Several artists, writers and composers were commissioned by Landtonen to make a poetic impression of these walks.View the impression, read the text, enjoy the images invoked. And then follow the same trail. You’ll see things through different eyes, hear with different ears and smell with a new nose. These poetic impressions were made in a limited edition. They are for sale in Noaberhuus Okkenbroek and in Kunstenlab Deventer.

But… because Noaberhuus is closed on Sundays (which are excellent hiking days ofcourse), I was commissioned to design some kind of device to distribute the poetic impressions (including a map) in another way. Could have been a very simple assignment I guess, but I decided it was more fun to distribute them with sound. Partly because Landtonen roughly translates as ‘showing land’ but also as ‘land tones’. And partly because of my earlier involvement in Landtonen.

So I took the assignment a step further and came up with four cabinets that play the flute when you open them. All four cabinets are playing a different tone. So when you combine them, you actually have a very basic musical instrument to play with! The construction is completely mechanical and works with bellows, no electricity needed.

As you can see there’s a red, blue, yellow and green cabinet which corresponds with – you guessed it – the red, blue, yellow and green trail. The outer casing is made of beechwood. Since Okkenbroek is a small village located in a rural area where decency (and social control) is still common good, you pay for your poetic impression by putting the right amount of money in one of the canisters on top. This system is used by farmers throughout the area. The same decency should also prevent extreme vandalism. This is why the cabinets are sturdy, but not vandalism proof.

Some time ago I went to R10 to check out the place, since I had never been there. It has plenty of facilities and workspace. I aim to use this workperiod mainly for research, since R10 oozes ‘laboratory’ out of every pore. Kind of reminds me of my art academy time. Sandrijn seems to be an interesting and challenging partner in this project. I don’t know him well, but am very familiar with his work, which I selected last year when curating the Ontbos exhibition in CBK Apeldoorn.

At this point I still have no idea what we are going to do next week, but I’m very anxious to find out where this collaboration leads me!

Update 1: I’m documenting our progress on Flickr.
Update 2: There’s going to be a festive finissage on February the 7th with an introduction by Patrick Mangnus and a live performance by Bedhelm and The Stewardess.