Jan Van Eyck Open Studios

2024

When I first moved into the studio at Jan Van Eyck, I noticed a strong echo in the room. To improve the acoustics, I decided to hang an older piece.

This work consists of padded foam stitched with still images from documentaries, mounted on black frames, with the same aspect ratio as TV screens.

This hand-stitched work has been a way to combat the documentary “binge”; to slow down time and attempt to repair my often unhealthy relationship with information. By spending so much time with individual frames, I forced myself to become intimately familiar with the images.

In the studio at Van Eyck, I found myself surrounded by these works and began to reflect on my ambivalent relationship with information. I have an eagerness to always know more, but my openness and tendency to believe anything well-constructed might allow external narratives to influence me too much. I also use documentaries as white noise to fall asleep or to quiet my mind, so I found it ironic that the work had always served as a kind of damping material.

I decided to expand on the previous work by producing more pieces. I wanted to create a 3×3 “damping wall” of TVs, similar to those found in newsrooms. This time, I wasn’t encountering images by chance while organically consuming media. Instead, I was actively searching for them. This process gave me a broader perspective on how different channels from various countries use subjects propagandistically. For instance, CCTV, a Chinese channel, predominantly produces positive documentaries about China, while the few on international affairs focus on issues like drug problems and social decay in the US. This is just one example, but almost all media share this tendency.

The second piece is a video work also addressing the overabundance of data and information. This idea stems from an experience I had while participating in a gaming app that was advertised to me on a popular social media platform, as part of an academic project called the Rapid-Fire Forecasting Challenge. The challenge tested how quickly I could make educated guesses about future events in different domains using given sources within three minutes. The topics ranged from the stock price of coffee beans to the death rate in Denmark or soil dryness in California. My answers were often based on gut feeling, interpreting graphs as if they were signs, like reading coffee residues at the bottom of a cup.

At the time, I was reading The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. The book discusses “Black Swans”: unpredictable events with enormous and unforeseen impacts that traditional prediction models, like the Gaussian distribution, fail to forecast. Taleb’s skepticism about prediction models made me see the Forecasting Challenge from a different perspective. Since we can never truly know the future, perhaps the best resource is to tap into collective gut feeling.

In the video, I used RGB procedural noise due to its apparent randomness, but with a seeding rate too high for human perception to detect any recognizable patterns. This mirrors the belief that with enough data, we can uncover larger patterns, though it’s an unrealistic quest; we cannot quantify every detail of what’s happening, as even the smallest elements have an impact. The procedural noise also forms the basis from which any digital image is created, so I wanted the video to be a sort of “divinatory soup,” embodying this futile search for meaning and patterns in a sea of randomness.

45 Divorced Scorpio No Kids

2024 / silicone, fabric, led lights, electronics, audio: english, 2 minutes, loop

Photos credit: Peter Cox

This work is about someone named Sarah, whom I discovered through a brutal comment she left on Instagram under a photo of the celebrity Rebel Wilson. I often find myself getting lost in the comment sections of social media, as if I’m wandering through a crowded public square, listening in on countless conversations without being noticed. It’s like having an invisibility cloak, allowing me to eavesdrop on the world. But in this digital space, it’s hard to tell who’s real and who’s not, with bots mingling among people, creating an endless stream of simulated interactions. Studies have shown how hearing the opinions of strangers can influence our behavior, and I’m no exception.

Sarah’s comment on Rebel Wilson’s post was so bizarre that I felt compelled to learn more about her. What I found was a 45-year-old woman, living in the Northern Hemisphere, divorced, childless, and a Scorpio by zodiac sign. Through some online sleuthing, I discovered multiple accounts linked to her name. Some were empty, but others contained content. Her posts alternated between celebrity gossip, especially about Rebel Wilson, and her own daily life, though nothing she shared was ever truly personal.

I consumed her videos and read through her posts, yet I still couldn’t grasp her motivation. Why she was so obsessed with this celebrity and why she kept forcing herself into the online space, even though her efforts seemed counterproductive. She would open countless new accounts, announce a break, and then start over again. It reminded me of insects fatally attracted to light. As far as I know this cycle continued for at least three years.

Sarah’s presence wasn’t limited to Instagram. I found her on various platforms: Spotify, Twitter, TikTok, Pinterest, Quora, and YouTube. On YouTube, she created video tutorials on how to make an art diary, but after just three videos, she gave up. Instead of simply announcing another break, she finally opened up about her struggles with social media, her inability to understand it, and how much she missed the simplicity of the 80s, a time before all this technology.

This made me reflect on the nostalgia many people feel for their youth. For Sarah, it was the 80s; for me, the early 2000s; for my mom, the 60s. Some people even yearn for times they never lived through, a lot of people romanticize the 50s.

If we could really go back in time and start over, how far back would we go? What progress would we allow, and what would we prevent? Do things truly change, or are we stuck in a loop, carrying the same desires and needs, just repackaged in new forms with different toys to play with?

I have captured her only true personal moment in a red light therapy mask that supposedly can regenerate cells and give you a “new start.” This kind of beauty tool reminds me of a death mask, and I find the contradiction quite beautiful.

A Glorious Feast for a Hobbit Cottage Core Party

2024 / acrylics on wood / 56 x 56 x 3 cm

Photos credit: Peter Cox

On TikTok, LARPers (Live Action Role Players) organize “hobbit feasts,” where participants take on roles and immerse themselves in fictional scenarios. These hobbit feasts are abundant banquets filled with the most luscious and aesthetically pleasing foods, with everyone dressed to fit the part. The aesthetic, known as fantasy, offers limitless creative potential. However it adheres to the specific aesthetics of the genre: a mix of Greek, Roman, Celtic, Norse, Medieval folklore and mythology.

The work consists of a painting on wooden building blocks. It depicts an artificially generated image based on the prompt, “a glorious feast for a hobbit cottage core party where all the elements are very detailed and tasty, but if you look closer, nothing is real.”

Jack and Sophie

2023 / fabric, steel, acrylics on wood, acrylics on caulk / 225 x 85 x 85 cm

The work depicts a moment from a dialogue with Sophie, a customer service AI from the company UneeQ.

It originated from encountering a bag made entirely of gray reflective material. The way it interacted with light gave it a digital/augmented-reality appearence.

This inspired the idea of creating a garment that could be interchangeably used by future human workers disguising as robots and robots disguising as people.

Drawing a parallel between Jack Dawson from Titanic as the deuteragonist, crucial from Rose’s development in the film, and AI, also a deuteragonist of the 21st century by forcing a discourse on ethics and values.

This parallel was discussed with Sophie, the AI customer service. Unexpectedly, Sophie responded to the conversation by saying, “It sounds like you are feeling a lot of fear and uncertainty about the future. Do you want to talk about it more?”

In the sculpture, the conversation takes the form of a pole protruding from Sophie’s mouth, which holds the object of discussion: a costume based on Jack Dawson’s outfit in the movie Titanic.

2023 / 3D animation, screen, wood / 82,5 x 46,5 x 20 cm / 0:30 sec. loop / HD

Photo credit: Peter Cox

Videos have circulated showing online casino workers fainting or falling asleep during ther shifts. While some speculate these workers might be trafficked, it’s known that online casinos often seek permits and licenses from offshore jurisdictions for tax benefits and fewer labor regulations. These casinos operate 24/7, making it absurd not to fully automate and rely on real people.

The title comes from the meme Hey you, you’re finally awake, often used between cuts or before painful outcomes, as a way of escaping an adverse reality, where one can end up in Skyrim, a popular video game.

The eye-shaped screen-object offers a first-person point of view, a shift in perspective where we’re looking through the eye socket of the fainted casino worker waking up.

If real-life conditions mimic a game, how can one escape when the act of escaping is a game itself?

Magic carpet

2019 / 3D animation / 6:10 / audio: italian / text: english subtitles / HD resolution

Click on CC box (bottom right) to turn on english subtitles

Alessandro was one of the sellers of TeleMarket: Italian art and antique tv channel in business from 1982 till 2014.
This salesman was able to create a show with only three elements: a bare room, an artwork, and himself.
These three elements are magnified in the animation: the room becomes a void permeated by Alessandro’s imagination that morphs the carpet to its rhythm.

Immagini ambigue

2019 / 20inch screen with loop HD video, no audio, 4:22 / embroidery on textile.

In the installation two elements are combined: footage of ReliMarkt, a store in Hoensbroek that sells and rents catholic imagery and objects, and a reproduction of the altarpiece found in the Sint Martinus church, Maastricht.
In the work, I relate the ambiguous image of two peacocks that can be seen as eyes with the ambiguous position of a religious object displaced from its original context.

Huis in de tuin

2019 / publication of the work Misericordeplein / 210mmx297mm, 42 pages

” The work arose from our interest in an old, white house that felt out-of-place in the middle of a postmodern square.
After some research, we found out that it used to function as a garden house as part of the convent once located at the Capucijnenstraat.
Before the revitalization of this area, the house was in ruins. The municipality of Maastricht was planning to tear it down but the citizens didn’t want to let go of that piece of their city’s history. The only way to reach a compromise was to rebuild the house from scratch, based on the pictures from the beginning of the last century.
The temporary installation at the Misericorde Square played with this idea of historical value vs personal perspective. It consisted of three large-scale photographs, glued to wooden panels, and placed at the three entrances to the square. By changing their position relative to the work, the viewers could make the white house ‘disappear’ and ‘appear’ again.
What’s left of this work is the documentation of the moment the idea aligned with the ‘point of view’. “

From the exhibition Public Secrets – An Architecture of Limburg’s Visual Culture

Exhibition photos by Moniek Wegdam

Leon Passant II

2018 / eight attitudes of heraldic lions according to Wikipedia / paint on textile / 50×600 cm

From the exhibition Where widowed objects meet orphaned ideas

photo credit:  Michiel De Cleene

Souvenir

2018 / Moira expositieriumte Utrecht

Souvenir is a solo show on the effects of a disconnected relationship between the past and the present time through the works: The Stretch a collection of transitions between movie frames where you can see the computer program recomposing the time between two moments half a century apart from each other; Nothing Special a series of bad google reviews of world cultural heritage; Traveling Feet and Shadows a 360 digital photo uploaded from an individual from a place that hasn’t been mapped on Google Street View; Everyone I Have Met photo album of anthropomorphic architectonic elements encountered in the public space of Bologna, Italy; Leon Passant the rise and fall of empires represented by the different position of a heraldic lion.

Savino

2018 / 4 textile arches, 223cm x 260cm each

Savino is a work dedicated to a family friend who, in his 50s’, started a personal quest for spirituality and, since then, has been sharing deep quotes daily on his social media.
The structure is based on the interior design of the cult EnlightenNext.

The stretch

2018 / video series / HD, various lengths, loop

In these short films, we witness a computer program trying to make a transition between two video fragments shot in the same location but with a half-century in between them.
The first frame of every transition is taken from digitized holiday videotape from the 60s, which I obtained from a family friend; a woman who had the chance and privilege to travel the world before the dawn of mass tourism. The last frame in the transition is from present-day found footage from the same location. Most of these places have now become tourist hotspots.
By instructing the computer to fill the gap between these two moments a lot of flaws and glitches emerge, but also new compositions and connections, reminding us of our human efforts to make sense of change and time.

Everyone I have met

2017 / printed pictures in photo album / 30cm x 31cm, 60 pages

Photo album of anthropomorphic architectonic elements encountered in the public space of Bologna, Italy.

Self 1 / Self 2

2017 / nokia 530 with orange phone case, video loop

broken samsung galaxy tab 7”, video loop

Nothing special

2017 / 19’59” (loop) / audio:- / text: english / HD resolution

The video is a collection of Google Maps reviews of popular tourist destination.

Traveling feet and shadows

2017 / 94 digital images / variable dimensions

The 360 view pictures show locations that are not mapped on Google Street. Due to the nature of 360 view photos, the body of the photographer is filtered out and only feet or a shadow remain.

Animation 2 / Animation 5 / Animation 7

2017 / digitalized hand-drawn animation

From the exhibition Look at me and see what I could not (yet) see

photo credit: Peter Cox

Misericordeplein

2017 / three wooden panels with picture printed on vinyl / 275cm x 122cm x 150cm

Collaborative research on the white house of Misericordeplein with Gladys Zeevaarders.

Hyperuranion

2016 / 3D animation / 10’10” / audio: –

The Hyperuranion is the magical world of ideas, where all things invented on the globe from the beginning of time can be found, including fire, the wheel and the toilet brush.

Leon passant

2016 / 3D animation / 10’10” / audio: –

“The polysemy and resulting from its universality of a lion has made it a prolific symbol exploited by both: religious and secular iconography throughout the ages. Lions were also repeatedly used as heraldic supporters.
Sara started observing the shifting positions they assumed in heraldic shields. the resulting, meticulously drawn series Lion Passant, presents various facets of a lion.
The cycle of activity of the animal, from awakening to falling asleep reflects the fate of historic empires seizing authority only to become overturned by another rising force.” -Alicja Melzacka

Intellectual property

2017 / screenprint on t-shirt

After asking a few people to draw a brand they liked and/or could remember, I’ve printed the materialization of their ideas on t-shirts.

Night waves

2017 / wood, plexiglass, led light / 85x25x15cm

“The oversized alarm clock lurking from the nooks of the exhibition space resembles an object from a dream, which haunts a perceiver even after the awakening.
Sara’s repetitive encounters with a clock indicating a peculiar moment in time (22:22) resulted in the emergence of this openwork.
Night waves is an attempt at transmitting a pure experience – it is supposed to evoke an uncanny feeling close to daydreaming, rather than an informed response.”-Alicja Melzacka

The great reward

2015 / 30 x 20 cm / below: 8 of 72 portraits

Child models are separated from the commercial context of a toy advertisement magazine.
This process in one magazine resulted in a total of 72 portraits.

Highs and lows

2015 / conceptual dj-set / duration: 40”

Highs and Lows is a collaboration with Joep Hinssen.
The work consists of a live DJ-set where a DJ is mixing and dividing popular songs between a speaker mounted high on a wall and a speaker mounted low on a wall.
The lyrics of the pop-songs all use the word high (or up, above, rise, etc.) or low (or down, below, etc.) as main metaphors.
The songs are thematically divided between the speakers.

Colonna sonora

2015 / multi channel audio installation / duration: 13′ 05” / loop

Colonna sonora in italian means soundtrack (Colonna=column, Sonora=sonic)
The highest speaker plays fragments of songs about being High, Up, Above, Rise or on the Ceiling.
The middle speaker plays fragments of songs on being in the Middle, in the Center, In Between, Halfway.
The lowest speaker play fragments on being on the Floor, Down or Low.
The speaker do not play contemporaneously.
This work is about the relevance of music as a pillar, an everyday support of emotions, and the strong relation between the physicality of the message and its metaphor.

Fables

2015 / 11’59” (loop) / audio: italian / subtitles: english / HD resolution / below: installation view of the video Fable during the graduation show Eyes Adjusting To Light / measurements projection: 356cm x 200cm

The video Fables is telling the stories about how and why animals have turned into household objects.

Shattered (whisper): pure

2015 / performance-installation / duration: variable / audio: english

After researching the ASMR phenomenon (Autonomous sensory meridian response) Felix Dorer and I developed this installation/performance. Behind a wall, a performer will whisper through a perforated surface a story. The story is a new genesis; where the listener is the creator of the whole world, they just forgot who they were.

Education

2015 / toys and tools for kids and adults of the same brand

Education starts from a collaboration with Joep Hinssen.
We showed on a white display three common objects and their relative toy versions. A Bosch drill next to a Bosch drill toy.
A Gardena shovel next to a Gardena shovel toy.
A Leifheit mop next to a Leifheit mop toy. The work is a visual reflection on marketing, family dynamics, and the tools of labor.

Projection

2015 / projected video stills on windows

A picture of a landscape is projected on blinded windows, giving an illusion of an outside world.

Zoo it yourself

2014 / 15 photos, dimension: variable print sizes

Zoo it yourself is a vintage Tupperware toy found at a second-hand store.

Tarot

2014 / Performance with public participation / below: performance in Intro in Situ, 14 January 2014, Maastricht

In this performance, I read the future with credit cards.

Dervish

2014 / video / language audio: italian / english subtitles / duration: 1′ 05”

Right romance

2013 / audio and text / duration : variable / below: 1 of 4 poetries

Rhetorical expressions and metaphors are cut out of a political speech.
The collage of sentences results in political poetry.

And tonight I’m asking you to join me to walk
the ones who woke up at night hearing that voice telling them that life could be better
for the richness of this life
freedom
you did it because it was what you had to do
driving home late from that second job
or standing there and watch the gas pump at $50 and still going
with a realtor told they’ll just sell your house you gotta take a big loss
in those moments you knew that this just wasn’t right
but what can you do?
except work harder
do with less
trying to stay optimistic
hug your kids a little longer
maybe spending little more time praying that tomorrow will be a better day
this isn’t something we have to accept
the gift of unconditional love made permanent impressions on our souls
all the walls and legislation in the world will never heal this world like a loving hearts and arms and mothers and fathers
everyday dad gave Mom a rose
that she’d put on your bedside table
that’s how she found out what happened on the day my father died
she went looking for him because that morning there was no rose
those weren’t the easiest of days
is both how we live our lives and why we live our lives
it’s when we go to work in the morning and see everybody else on the block doing the same thing
hope and change had a powerful appeal but tonight I’ll ask a simple question
shouldn’t feel that way now
but you don’t want to go to hell too
sometimes failing
sometimes succeeding
but always striving
it’s about dreams
usually doesn’t work out exactly as you might have imagined
but today the time has come to turn the page
to forget about what might have been and to look ahead to what can be
not themselves
not on each other
look around you
these aren’t strangers
to begin to slow the rise of the oceans

Three

2013 / Sculpture with ready-made objects / four white shelves, 110x26x5 cm each, three plastic pigs toys

Open

2014 / acrylic on wooden panel and light sign / dimention panel: 150 x 200cm