You can find a nice selection of pictures taken by Kunstenlab and me on Flickr and a video by Egbert Scheffer on YouTube. Looking back I’m really content with the way this project turned out. In some degree it even changed my own perception of social media. I think ‘#isthemessage’ succeeded in the multitude of goals I set out at the start, although I would have expected it to gain a bit more media attention then it actually did.

I would like to thank Kunstenlab for their invitation and support, and all participating artists for their work.

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.

Oh no wait, this is actually more like minimal maybe. This design (oldie but goodie) is spartan.

Good news! After lying dormant for quite some time, WILLIE is now back on it’s feet again and reclaimed it’s place in Havenkwartier Deventer. WILLIE is a collective of artists, designers and alike to which I have happily dedicated lots of time and effort in the past and as it now seems, will happily continue to do so in the future. Read more about WILLIE’s comeback and mission statement overhere.

Since WILLIE’s old website had already died and couldn’t be revived, I designed and built this new one, based on the old WILLIE logo by Bart Folmer. It’s a WordPress based website, with lots of hidden and automated extra’s. And I’m quite proud of it! Especially when taking into consideration that this website had to be realized on very short notice.

Due to my vacation I couldn’t spend as much time as I would have liked on realizing the new WILLIE bar interior, but that turned out great too! So come take a look when you get the chance. We’re open every Friday (17:00-1:00) and Sunday (15:00-23:00). Check the website for the complete agenda.

In my humble opinion this design has survived the test of time just fine. It was nice to hear that Sandra thought so too, and was still very happy with it. The site just needed some tweaking to make sharing easier. Also Google changed it’s code for personalized search over the years, and this happened to break the search functionality all together. All is up and running again. The contents make for some  interesting reading too, so go check it out already.

Sandra also asked me to design some stationary for her. Working on that now.

I just finished building a new website for Klassiek Raggen (Bob Fosko and Kollektief Roest & Wrakhout). It felt like a privilege to be on the front row at the first public performance in Merleyn, where the above video was shot. Weird nostalgia.

The website is based on the same template as the previous websites I have built for other productiehuis ON productions. Which means this too is a WordPress based website with a lot of automated action going ON. Looks basic, but a lot of the content is imported through feeds, which makes updating relatively low maintenance.

I just finished building a new website for sample kings The Q4 (Sense, Arts The Beatdoctor and STW).

The website is based on the same template as the previous websites I have built for other productiehuis ON productions. Which means this too is a WordPress based website with a lot of automated action going ON. Looks basic, but a lot of the content is imported through feeds, which makes updating relatively low maintenance.

I just finished building a new website for Old Powder New Guns by Lilian Hak. It is based on the same template as the previous website for a productiehuis ON production.

Which means this too is a WordPress based website with a lot of automated action going ON. Personally I’m not so sure about the background color (maybe it’s just my dislike of maroon), but hey, it’s a team effort and apparently maroon is what you get in a democracy.

The new website for NO blues is now online! I designed and built it for productiehuis ON. It’s another WordPress based website with a lot of automated action going ON. Sure, it looks basic, but it’s a regular feed beast, which makes it very low maintenance.

Some small adjustments are to be made later on, especially in the shop department. For now the shop points to the external ON shop, which isn’t what I had in mind at all. In fact, it looks plain ugly. I hope I get to change this sometime soon…

More websites for other projects by productiehuis ON are to follow, all based on the same flexible custom template.

Just finished the website for OE-DA! (Overijsselse Erfgoed Design Award). Designed the whole thing, including the OE-DA! logotype, as I mentioned earlier. The website was commissioned by KCO and uses WordPress as a CMS.