Tallieu Art Office

Nemo Observatorium 02002 at Prisma Festival Aveiro

Igreja das Carmelitas
Aveiro (PT)

NEMO OBSERVATORIUM 02002 - Styrofoam particles are blown around in a big transparent cylinder by five strong fans. Visitors can take place one by one on the armchair in the middle of the whirlpool, in the eye of the storm, where it is calm and safe. Spectacular at first sight, this installation turns out to mesmerise as a kind of meditation machine, challenging the visitor to stay centred and find peace in a fast changing environment. After a while the space seems to expand and one's sense of time deludes.

Schedule
2-3 october: 10h00-12h30 / 13h30-18h00
4-5 october: 10h00-12h30 / 13h30-18h00 / 20h00-24h00

Lawrence Malstaf
Prisma Festival Aveiro

SHRINK 01995 - The Presence of Absence at Frankfurter Kunstverein

Frankfurter Kunstverein
Frankfurt (DE)

The exhibition The Presence of Absence will occupy the entire exhibition space of the Frankfurter Kunstverein, covering 1,000 square meters. Thematically, the exhibition revolves around humanity’s timeless engagement with the idea of transience and its forms of representation in art. The title refers to matter as a presence where traces of the living are inscribed. Vital energy is powerful yet fleeting. It leaves a mark, a trace that, captured in matter, can endure over time.

The exhibition will juxtapose exhibits spatially, presenting the abstract idea of a “presence of the absent” from both artistic and scientific perspectives within an expanded conceptual space. The curatorial narrative will venture as far as the astrophysical phenomenon of the black hole. Thoughts on the expanse and time, and the infinity of the universe lie beyond our human imagination, yet simultaneously raise the question of who we are. Our planet hovers somewhere between immensity and eternity. And for a fleeting moment, our own lives open a window.

The self experiences the wonder of reality through the senses of our bodies. These consist of the elements of exploded stars in the cosmos: the nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our bones, the iron in our blood, or the carbon in our cells. In fleeting moments, we connect with eternity and give traces of being a material form. Art is one way to do that.

Curated by Franziska Nori, with scientific support from Anita Lavorano and Laura Perrone

SHRINK 01995 - Two large, transparent plastic sheets and a device that gradually sucks the air out from between them leave the body vacuum-packed and vertically suspended. The transparent tube inserted between the two surfaces allows the person inside the installation to regulate the flow of air. As a result of the increasing pressure between the plastic sheets, the surface of the packed body gradually freezes into multiple micro-folds. For the duration of the performance the person inside moves slowly and changes positions, which vary from an almost embryonic position to one resembling a crucified body.

Lawrence Malstaf
Frankfurter Kunstverein

SHRINK 01995 at Baltoscandal 2024

Baltoscandal
Rakvere (EST)

SHRINK 01995 - Two large, transparent plastic sheets and a device that gradually sucks the air out from between them leave the body vacuum-packed and vertically suspended. The transparent tube inserted between the two surfaces allows the person inside the installation to regulate the flow of air. As a result of the increasing pressure between the plastic sheets, the surface of the packed body gradually freezes into multiple micro-folds. For the duration of the performance the person inside moves slowly and changes positions, which vary from an almost embryonic position to one resembling a crucified body.

At Baltoscandal  2024 there will be 3 Shrinks and the bodies of 3 performers.

Photography by Martin Argyroglo at Nuit Blanche Paris 2023.

Lawrence Malstaf
Baltoscandal  2024

SHRINK 01995 at NOVUM Newcastle Summer Festival

NOVUM 2024
Newcastle (UK)

SHRINK 01995 - Two large, transparent plastic sheets and a device that gradually sucks the air out from between them leave the body vacuum-packed and vertically suspended. The transparent tube inserted between the two surfaces allows the person inside the installation to regulate the flow of air. As a result of the increasing pressure between the plastic sheets, the surface of the packed body gradually freezes into multiple micro-folds. For the duration of the performance the person inside moves slowly and changes positions, which vary from an almost embryonic position to one resembling a crucified body.

At NOVUM Newcastle Summer Festival there will be 4 Shrinks and the bodies of 4 performers.

Photography by Martin Argyroglo at Nuit Blanche Paris 2023.

Lawrence Malstaf
NOVUM Newcastle Summer Festival

Abundance - Première

Festspillene i Nord Norge
Hartstad (NO)

Abundance is a project that challenges the consumer society by finding a new value in what we regard as waste.

Inspired by our ancestors we started gathering and foraging, along the snowy roads in the north of Norway. We found thousands of broken polypropylene sticks that usually mark the edge of the road in winter.
In this immersive performance visitors are introduced to two machines that shred and melt the broken sticks into new curly red ribbons and strings. With this new building material the visitors weave a large three dimensional network through the space in a collective process.  

Along with three dancers, several guests join the evening and share controversial stories on rewilding and ownership of nature. 

Performance - installation by Lawrence Malstaf and Liv Hanne Haugen (dancer, singer) in collaboration with Rosa Los & Liel Fibak (installation / performance assistants) and the neighbours of The Radio Forest. With support of Tromsø Kommune.

Lawrence Malstaf
Festspillene i Nord Norge

Seagull Fountain / Kittiwake Hotel 02022 in Naturarchy

iMAL
Brussels (B)

Embracing the arts for systemic change, NaturArchy proposes to re-consider our imaginaries on nature and the non-human.

The exhibition probes issues of deep ecology, sustainability and the decolonisation of nature. A number of art and science works explore and query nature and law, the entanglement of human and non-human, green technologies and new materials, nature and law, ecology and economy, ancient and new knowledge. From global oceans to water flows, from contamination and bacteria to climate tipping points, pollinators, and landscapes of natural hazards; from natural and artificial intelligence to non-human values, forests, lands, soils, composting; from grief and mourning to rituals, wonder and collective action.

SEAGULL FOUNTAIN  by Lawrence Malstaf 
"Kittiwakes are a type of seagulls that are threatened with extinction due to climate change. They used to live in enormous colonies on islands far out in the arctic ocean. Recently the remaining birds are migrating to arctic cities like Tromsø in the north of Norway.
In the past 3 years the art museum has been invaded by an ever growing colony of kittiwakes. As a form of interspecies activism the birds took over the whole building with enormous noise, making hundreds of nests on window sills and ledges and spreading an intense smell. This resulted in an equally loud outcry of the people living and working in this otherwise peaceful town.
In collaboration with researchers we designed 3 light and mobile tripod structures with sculptural nesting modules on top and placed them right next to the facade. Once the birds started to make nests in their new hotels we moved them carefully away from the building, in small steps, a couple of meters per week. 95% of the colony followed and the local humans were happy too. By the end of next season we hope to arrive about 100 m further down the museum park. Here we will install 2 larger and permanent tripods that can welcome 2000 kittiwakes from other nearby buildings." Lawrence Malstaf

iMAL
Lawrence Malstaf

SHRINK 01995

Sismògraf Festival
Olot (ES)

SHRINK 01995 - Two large, transparent plastic sheets and a device that gradually sucks the air out from between them leave the body vacuum-packed and vertically suspended. The transparent tube inserted between the two surfaces allows the person inside the installation to regulate the flow of air. As a result of the increasing pressure between the plastic sheets, the surface of the packed body gradually freezes into multiple micro-folds. For the duration of the performance the person inside moves slowly and changes positions, which vary from an almost embryonic position to one resembling a crucified body.

At Sismògraf Festival there will be 3 Shrinks and the bodies of 3 performers.

Photography by Martin Argyroglo at Nuit Blanche Paris 2023.

Sismògraf Festival
Lawrence Malstaf

EXHALE 01998 - 02004

Saint-Ex, Culture numérique
Reims (F)

A large inflatable fills the room and  slowly transforms into different abstract shapes. Like an enlarged deep sea creature it slowly and quietly contracts and expands into different corners of the space.  

EXHALE  starts from a movement we all share: breathing. This process of inhaling and exhaling as an expression of our physical and mental states is in constant change and usually unconscious. Yet it can also be a portal to control psychosomatic phenomena like stress and anxiety. Breath connects mind and body, the yogi said a 1000 years ago. However in these eco-calyptic times where fear is the best selling currency, science tell us about earlier mass extinctions and the cycles of life in our earthly atmosphere. With scientific prose on the origins and evolution of life on the planet Tellus, written by Norwegian writer-biologist Vibeke Thorp. 

Lawrence Malstaf 
Saint-Ex

SHRINK 01995

Post-Umano L’ulteriorita
Scalo Valdocco, Torino (IT)

SHRINK 01995 by Lawrence Malstaf 
Two large, transparent plastic sheets and a device that gradually sucks the air out from between them leave the body (in this case the artist himself) vacuum-packed and vertically suspended. The transparent tube inserted between the two surfaces allows the person inside the installation to regulate the flow of air. As a result of the increasing pressure between the plastic sheets, the surface of the packed body gradually freezes into multiple micro-folds. For the duration of the performance the person inside moves slowly and changes positions, which vary from an almost embryonic position to one resembling a crucified body.

Post-Umano L’ulteriorita 
Curated by Simome Sensi

TICKETS

EXHALE / PUST

KOREDA dansefestival
Inderøy (NO)

A large inflatable fills the room and  slowly transforms into different abstract shapes. Like an enlarged deep sea creature it slowly and quietly contracts and expands into different corners of the space.   

EXHALE  starts from a movement we all share: breathing. This process of inhaling and exhaling as an expression of our physical and mental states is in constant change and usually unconscious. Yet it can also be a portal to control psychosomatic phenomena like stress and anxiety. Breath connects mind and body, the yogi said a 1000 years ago. However in these eco-calyptic times where fear is the best selling currency, science tell us about earlier mass extinctions and the cycles of life in our earthly atmosphere. With scientific prose, dance and electronic sounds, the audience is invited inside a large inflated lung where performers and visitors become one and the invisible air is shared as a physical and tangible medium. ‘Breathing is the first and the last thing you will do, you will breath about 10000 liters of air today. Without breath, no life.’

Dance by Liv Hanne Haugen and electronic sounds, performed live by one of Norways leading and internationally acclaimed electronic musicians Per Martinsen, communicate abstractly and open - sometimes violently and loud, other times soft and quiet, with each other, always in presence of the sound of breathing. Visual artist Lawrence Malstaf is manipulating, pulling and re-shaping the bubble in a dance that also makes the audience move. Text by Vibeke Thorp.

Producer: Anne Katrine Haugen - Consultant: Margunn Kilde - Production: Haugen Productions

KOREDA dansefestival
Lawrence Malstaf

Nemo Observatorium 02002 in CAPTURE#2

Le Pavillon
Namur (B)

NEMO OBSERVATORIUM 02002 - Styrofoam particles are blown around in a big transparent PVC cylinder by 5 strong fans. Visitors can take place one by one on the armchair in the middle of the whirlpool or observe from the outside. On the chair, in the eye of the storm it is calm and safe.Spectacular at first sight, this installation turns out to mesmerise as a kind of meditation machine. One can follow the seemingly cyclic patterns, focus on the different layers of 3D pixels or listen to its waterfall sound. One could call it a training device, challenging the visitor to stay centred and find peace in a fast changing environment. After a while the space seems to expand and one's sense of time deludes.

CAPTURE #2 is the second in a series of exhibitions devised by the KIKK to showcase the diversity and creativity of the digital arts in Belgium. The exhibition presents recent projects by artists who all use new technologies to capture the world in their own way.
Curator: Marie du Chastel

Le Pavillon
Lawrence Malstaf

SHRINK 01995 at L.E.V. Matadero

Matadero
Madrid (ES)

SHRINK 01995 - Two large, transparent plastic sheets and a device that gradually sucks the air out from between them leave the body (in this case the artist himself) vacuum-packed and vertically suspended. The transparent tube inserted between the two surfaces allows the person inside the installation to regulate the flow of air. As a result of the increasing pressure between the plastic sheets, the surface of the packed body gradually freezes into multiple micro-folds. For the duration of the performance the person inside moves slowly and changes positions, which vary from an almost embryonic position to one resembling a crucified body.

At L.E.V. Matadero there will be 6 Shrinks and the bodies of 6 performers.

L.E.V. Festival
Lawrence Malstaf

SHRINK 01995

Nuit Blanche Paris
Palais Galliera - Musée de la Mode de la Ville de Paris 10, avenue Pierre-1er-de-Serbie , Paris 16e

SHRINK 01995 - Two large, transparent plastic sheets and a device that gradually sucks the air out from between them leave the body (in this case the artist himself) vacuum-packed and vertically suspended. The transparent tube inserted between the two surfaces allows the person inside the installation to regulate the flow of air. As a result of the increasing pressure between the plastic sheets, the surface of the packed body gradually freezes into multiple micro-folds. For the duration of the performance the person inside moves slowly and changes positions, which vary from an almost embryonic position to one resembling a crucified body.

At Nuit Blanche Paris there will be 3 Shrinks and the bodies of 3 performers.

Lawrence Malstaf
Nuit Blanche Paris

OVERVIEW 02016

Shenzhen Museum of Contemporary Art and Urban Planning (MoCAUP)
Shenzhen, Guangdong (CN)

OVERVIEW 02016
Astronauts who were able to observe planet earth from outer space for the first time, all experienced a strong emotional reaction later called the overview effect. A euphoric feeling of oneness with the planet and all living beings as a collective biotope where 'my molecules are yours and vice versa and individuality seems an illusion.

The work of Lawrence Malstaf is situated on the borderline between the visual and the theatrical. He develops installation and performance art with a strong focus on movement, coincidence, order and chaos, and immersive sensorial rooms for individual visitors. He also creates larger mobile environments dealing with space and orientation, often using the visitor as a co-actor. His projects involve physics and technology as a point of departure or inspiration and as a means for activating installations. 

Topologies of the Real: Techne Shenzhen 2023
ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe | Art in Motion: 100 Masterpieces with and through Media (China edition)

Curated by Zhang Ha

Nevel Scale Model

Limited Edition
Tallieu Art Office

NEVEL 1/66 
Hand polished aluminium 
20 x 20 x 6 cm 
Edition of 5 copies + 1 A.P 
Price on request: ischa@artoffice.be

Lawrence Malstaf

NEVEL in New Religion

Dansens Hus
Oslo (NO)

After each performance of New Religion by Mathilde Caeyers, the audience is invited onto the stage to experience the installation NEVEL .

The installation, which is part of the scenography of the performance New Religion, was created by Lawrence Malstaf. 
NEVEL was initially created in 2004 as an art installation, and will be used for its original purpose after the performance. The public can enter the installation to experience what it is like to be in a mutating labyrinth that determines where you are allowed to go.

New Religion
NEVEL at Dansens Hus
Lawrence Malstaf

FLOOD at Chroniques Biennale 2022

Friche la Belle de Mai
Marseille (F)

New Installation in coproduction with iMAL, Seconde Nature & Zinc.
Supported by De Vlaamse Gemeenschap

In this project Lawrence Malstaf wants to explore the kinetic and tactile qualities of a large mass of primal matter slowly descending and threatening to flood the exhibition space. Some precision machines try to control and contain the unpredictable and mysterious compound in a Sisyphean struggle to hold off the inevitable. Does it become a state of conflict or an attempt for symbiosis in the eternal drama of order and chaos inherent in both our physical and mental reality?  

Lawrence Malstaf
Chroniques Biennale

SHRINK 01995 in The future is

Trondheim Kunstmuseum
Trondheim (NO)

SHRINK 01995
Two large, transparent plastic sheets and a device that gradually sucks the air out from between them leave the body (in this case the artist himself) vacuum-packed and vertically suspended. The transparent tube inserted between the two surfaces allows the person inside the installation to regulate the flow of air. As a result of the increasing pressure between the plastic sheets, the surface of the packed body gradually freezes into multiple micro-folds. For the duration of the performance the person inside moves slowly and changes positions, which vary from an almost embryonic position to one resembling a crucified body.

The future is
Today, you can choose your social media pronouns and decide how you want to be defined. It hasn't always been that way. It was not until the 1970s that homosexuality was decriminalized in Norway. Sexual liberation was connected to the student revolution that raged throughout the West. It was a time for new ideas and utopian visions of the future. The exhibition seeks to find a way back to this optimism of the future–a non-binary society–where anything is possible and where everyone can fly. What might a non-binary society look like? The exhibition is a laboratory, an investigation, a thought experiment over a utopian future society.

Lawrence Malstaf - SHRINK 01995
Trondheim Kunstmuseum - The future is

NEVEL 1/66 Scale model

new edition
Tromsø (NO) & Brussels (B)

Commissioned by the Hamsunsenteret in Norway, Lawrence Malstaf integrated an adapted version of NEVEL 02004/10.

A new version of NEVEL is now permanently installed in the award winning museum designed by the American architect Steven Holl. 

On this occasion we are launching a limited edition of the scale model 1/66 of NEVEL. 

NEVEL 1/66 
Hand polished aluminium 
20 x 20 x 6 cm 
Edition of 5 copies + 1 A.P 
https://vimeo.com/715908582

Price on request: ischa@artoffice.be

Hamsunsenteret
Lawrence Malstaf

NEMO OBSERVATORIUM 02002

LES SAFRA'NUMÉRIQUES 2022
Le Safran, Amiens (F)

NEMO OBSERVATORIUM 02002 by Lawrence Malstaf.
Styrofoam particles are blown around in a big transparent PVC cylinder by 5 strong fans. Visitors can take place one by one on the armchair in the middle of the whirlpool or observe from the outside. On the chair, in the eye of the storm it is calm and safe.Spectacular at first sight, this installation turns out to mesmerise as a kind of meditation machine. One can follow the seemingly cyclic patterns, focus on the different layers of 3D pixels or listen to its waterfall sound. One could call it a training device, challenging the visitor to stay centred and find peace in a fast changing environment. After a while the space seems to expand and one's sense of time deludes.

LES SAFRA'NUMÉRIQUES 2022

BOREAS / SLOW (36 h) 2022

Concertgebouw Brugge
Brugge (B°

During this third edition SLOW (36h), Concertgebouw Brugge (B) give you 36 hours to stop and reflect in a society that is all too often rushing forward. Inspired by ancient and other cultures, we experience a different notion of time, by stopping the clock and getting maximal enjoyment from minimal resources.

BOREAS 02007, an installation by Lawrence Malstaf is installed in the Concert Hall.  Admission is free with a ticket for the performances by Keiko Shichijo, Taurus Quartet or Organo.

BOREAS 02007 is a matrix of tubes is spread out equally over the room. They bend over extremely slowly as if a slow motion wind were touching them. Leaning into one another they reaching out like the tentacles of a giant snail. The room continuously transforms from a geometric grid to an unpredictable organic structure and back. Order to chaos to order in a never ending cycle. 

Saturday 5 February 2022 
11:00 - Keiko Shichijo
20:00 - Taurus Quartet

Sunday 6 February 2022
16:30 - Organo

TICKETS

CONVERSATIONS 02012

ZHI Art Museum
Chengdu (ROC)

CONVERSATIONS 02012 by Lawrence Malstaf is included in the group exhibition 'YI' at ZHI Art Museum in Chengdu.

A couple of vibrating chairs are slowly moving and turning randomly through the space. They seem to search and reject each other with soft humming sounds. When a visitor passes by or sits down, the chairs hesitate and then carefully try out different patterns. The patterns are not designed; it is a self-organising system where new compositions and new behaviour arises spontaneously through the duration of the installation.

ZHI Art Museum

Closing Weekend Metabolic Spaces

Le Tetris
Le Havre (F)

LAWRENCE MALSTAF / METABOLIC SPACES

Living objects, kinetic architecture and physical interaction are characteristic for the installations by Lawrence Malstaf. His responsive environments generate theatrical situations involving the visitor as an essential presence in their dramaturgy. In a complex play with unstable order, chance and change, his machines display emotion, doubt and other human qualities.

Closing weekend of EXHIBIT  at Le Tetris, Le Havre (F) with works & installations by Lawrence Malstaf, Alex Verhaest, Julie Stephen Chheng & Marco Barotti. 

Shrink-performances: 5 & 6 September 2020 at 11:00 - 14:00 - 16:00 - 18:00 & 21:00

Free entry after reservation

LE TETRIS

Shrink at BOZAR Open Air

BOZAR
Place Baron Horta, Brussels (B)

Shrink 01995 - Two large, transparent plastic sheets and a device that gradually sucks the air out from between them leave the body vacuum-packed and vertically suspended. The transparent tube inserted between the two surfaces allows the person inside the installation to regulate the flow of air. As a result of the increasing pressure between the plastic sheets, the surface of the packed body gradually freezes into multiple micro-folds. For the duration of the performance the person inside moves slowly and changes positions, which vary from an almost embryonic position to one resembling a crucified body.

Performances at 19:00 & 20:30

BOZAR Open Air
Lawrence Malstaf

Merzbau - performance at Tromsø Sjøfront Laboratorium

Tromsø Sjøfront Laboratorium
Tromsø (NO)

Tromsø palms grow along roadsides,abandonned properties and shorelines. Like undesired weeds they thrive along the urban borders. A metaphor for things not planned.  

In the same spirit we use them to build a construction without plan. We gather people and start building. No rules only dried  palms, tape and gravity. Does it end up in arguments or collaboration, beautiful art or collapse? It surely gets complicated. 

For the Sjøfront Laboratorium we gather people  on a controversial development lot in the heart of Tromsø to build a different future. 

Lawrence Malstaf
STATEX

Nemo Observatorium 02002 / Nuit de la Culture 2020

Nuit de la Culture 2020
Esch-sur-Alzette (LU)

CANCELLED

Nemo Observatorium 02002  by Lawrence Malstaf - Styrofoam particles are blown around in a big transparent PVC cylinder by 5 strong fans. Visitors can take place one by one on the armchair in the middle of the whirlpool or observe from the outside. On the chair, in the eye of the storm it is calm and safe.Spectacular at first sight, this installation turns out to mesmerise as a kind of meditation machine. One can follow the seemingly cyclic patterns, focus on the different layers of 3D pixels or listen to its waterfall sound. One could call it a training device, challenging the visitor to stay centered and find peace in a fast changing environment. After a while the space seems to expand and one's sense of time deludes.

Nuit de la Culture 2020

Lawrence Malstaf - Metabolic Spaces / Exhibit

Le Tetris
Le Havre (FR)

Lawrence Malstaf is presenting six installations in the context of EXHIBIT at Le Tetris this summer: 

METABOLIC SPACES

Nevel 02004/10 
Territorium 02010/19
Spheres 02016/20
Shrink 01995
Conversations 02012
Nemo Observatorium 02002

Shrink- performances: 27 & 28 June and 5 & 6 September 2020
Artists Talk with Lawrence Malstaf & Alex Verhaest on 29 June 2020 at 17:00

Le Tetris

UNDISCIPLINARY FROM NOW ON. CROSSCUTTING ARTS AND SCIENCES WHILE LEAVING THEM INTACT

Horta Hall
BOZAR, Brussels (B)

- POSTPONED - New date will follow

A DEBATE, TWO BOOKS, AN INSTALLATION AND A PERFORMANCE.

Society is paved with tension fields. Scientists alone cannot solve this. Artists neither. Both species have a responsibility and an autonomy to guard, especially when the funding mechanisms are inclining towards ideological goals instead of incubating talent.

The occasion of this evening event is the release of two books: Machine Made Silence. The Art of Kris Verdonck, edited by Peter Eckersall and Kristof van Baarle, and Go with the Flow and Stay with the Trouble, edited by Marleen Wynants. The first one reflects on the art works of Kris Verdonck, the second is the apex of the STAL project, a joint initiative by VUB, ULB and BOZAR from 2017 to 2019.

Both books refer to unexpected encounters and a particular way of working that surpasses established disciplines and domains, yet, leaving them intact while exploring a kind of un-disciplinary thinking, a field of enquiry of its own.

A conversation between Kris Verdonck, Marleen Wynants, Caroline Nevejan and Lawrence Malstaf will be preceded by the Spheres performance by the latter. Meanwhile the Horta Hall in BOZAR will also host a series of installations by Kris Verdonck and all participants will be invited to a cocktail before, during and after.

Program
18:30 Opening installations by Kris Verdonck
19:00 Welcome
19:20 Introduction STAL by Marleen Wynants
19:30 Performance by Lawrence Malstaf
20:00 Book presentation and conversation with Kris Verdonck, Marleen Wynants, Caroline Nevejan and Lawrence Malstaf
20:30 End of formal presentations

Faith, Hope & Thermodynamics

Vårscenefest
Tromsø (NO)

- POSTPONED - New dates will follow

A site-specific and ongoing performance project along the seaside, with installation art and activism.
If you surf the web, open a newspaper or turn on the news, you get the impression that the world is in the wild. The media is full of war, death and misery. One may be tempted to long for the past, for an easier, happier time. But this media picture is not right. According to research and statistics, humanity is constantly making great leaps towards a better world. And the second law of thermodynamics says that the future cannot be simpler than the present. Complexity will always increase. Going back is not a possibility - we must move forward. That is our destiny - and the meaning of it all. 
So we act.

​Between February and June 2020 STATEX is planning a series of workshops and interventions around the challenges and questions of the Waterfront Laboratory. This research will culminate in a larger performance-based project called ‘Faith Hope and Thermodynamics’ premiering in autumn 2020.

Vårscenefest
STATEX

Polygon in expocollective#17 supernature

Saint-Ex / Manège de Reims
Reims (F)

- CANCELLED -

POLYGON 02016 by Lawrence Malstaf is a large kinetic structure composed of lightweight articulating tubes hanging from thin wires. Via a mechanism of motors and counterweights it becomes a geometric landscape that moves organically and adjusts shape and balance in response to the visitors. 

Saint-Ex

Shrink at Festival Out Of The Box 2020

whiteBOX
Munich (D)

Shrink 01995 - Two large, transparent plastic sheets and a device that gradually sucks the air out from between them leave the body vacuum-packed and vertically suspended. The transparent tube inserted between the two surfaces allows the person inside the installation to regulate the flow of air. As a result of the increasing pressure between the plastic sheets, the surface of the packed body gradually freezes into multiple micro-folds. For the duration of the performance the person inside moves slowly and changes positions, which vary from an almost embryonic position to one resembling a crucified body.

At Festival Out Of The Box 2020 there will be 6 Shrinks and the bodies of 6 performers.

Out Of The Box

Lawrence Malstaf at Scopitone 2019

Scopitone 2019
Nantes (F)

PAVILION 02011-12 - Two large transparent sails are swirling and circling through the space by means of a motorised flagpole. The installation transforms the space with a dramatic choreography, and analogue sound, sometimes violent, sometimes very delicate. The visitor can lay down beneath this synthetic cloud and observe patterns emerging and disappearing. 

Scopitone 2019
Lawrence Malstaf

D.I.Y - Manual for a potential future

Halogaland Teater
Tromsø (NO)

D.I.Y. - Manual for a Potential Future - A performance with dance, installation, music, primal scream, poetry and fermentation. Five self absorbed performance artists are excavating themselves from dystopia. Todays society suffers a crisis of future. We are trapped in the realities of the now. More than ever we need utopian visions. More than ever we need to raise questions. The result is a subjective and beautiful research of our potential collective futures. 

Halogaland Teater
D.I.Y. - Manual for a Potential Future 
STATEX COLLECTIVE

Shrink 01995, Nemo Observatorium 02002 & Archaeologies at IOMA

IOMA
Beijing (ROC)

Nemo Observatorium 02002 - Styrofoam particles are blown around in a big transparent PVC cylinder by 5 strong fans. Visitors can take place one by one on the armchair in the middle of the whirlpool or observe from the outside. On the chair, in the eye of the storm it is calm and safe.Spectacular at first sight, this installation turns out to mesmerise as a kind of meditation machine. One can follow the seemingly cyclic patterns, focus on the different layers of 3D pixels or listen to its waterfall sound. One could call it a training device, challenging the visitor to stay centred and find peace in a fast changing environment. After a while the space seems to expand and one's sense of time deludes.

Shrink 01995 - Two large, transparent plastic sheets and a device that gradually sucks the air out from between them leave the body vacuum-packed and vertically suspended. The transparent tube inserted between the two surfaces allows the person inside the installation to regulate the flow of air. As a result of the increasing pressure between the plastic sheets, the surface of the packed body gradually freezes into multiple micro-folds. For the duration of the performance the person inside moves slowly and changes positions, which vary from an almost embryonic position to one resembling a crucified body.
At IOMA Beijing there will be 5 Shrinks and the bodies of 5 performers.

The Archaeologies are remains of the creation process of various projects. Lawrence Malstaf constructs nearly all projects from A to Z his own studio. This requires a lot of technical research often through a challenging process of trial and error. Yet it is precisely in these errors he finds inspiration and ideas for new projects. 
With the care of an archaeologist he presents artefacts and traces of these errors, objects found on the floor and in the corners of his studio and he exhibits these artefacts as a pseudo-archaeological documentation. Each cabinet documents a different installation presented in a video. 
Next to exhibitions, several installations have been integrated in stage-performances. The text fragments on the drawings are quotes from these theatre- and dance performances. 

Curated by Chen Yunbing

Polygon

SPRING Performing Arts Festival
Hoog Catharijne, Stadskamer, Utrecht (NL)

POLYGON 02016 - Imagine a large technical construction suspended above your head. Although it is a kinetic structure composed of lightweight articu lating tubes hanging from thin wires, it seems at times almost animal-like or even human. Polygon is a geometric landscape that moves organically and adjusts its shape and balance unpredictably. Visitors can observe the slowly contracting and expanding structure in the busy shopping mall Hoog Catharijne.

Lawrence Malstaf’s installations are situated between art and new technology, between the visual and the theatrical. In a complex play with unstable order, chance and change his machines display emotion, doubt and other human qualities. 

SPRING Utrecht
Lawrence Malstaf

Spheres 02015 & Utopia 02018

Baile do Sarongue
Rio de Janeiro (BR)

SPHERES 02015 - Large white spheres float around in a quiet and dark space. They seem to defy gravity as they rise and fall in slow motion like fragile planets or unknown deep sea creatures. A performer is activating the spheres in an endless Sisyphian choreography. 

UTOPIA 02018 - Utopia is a large kinetic structure composed of lightweight aluminium tubes hanging from thin wires. Via a mechanism of small counterweights and motors it becomes an organic cloud that transforms itself slowly through different states of unstable equilibrium. 
Utopia is a site specific work with variable dimensions and is constructed mainly with local materials. 

http://lawrencemalstaf.com/_work/spheres.html
http://lawrencemalstaf.com/_work/utopia.html

D.I.Y - Manual for a potential future by STATEX at Festival Trajectoires

Stereolux
Nantes (F)

Today, our society suffers a future crisis. It seems nearly impossible to imagine a society radically different form the existing one. We are trapped in the realities of the present. The project DIY or manual for a possible future, is based on recognition that the world can not change if we are unable to think about new futures. More than ever, we therefore need utopias. 

‘The first law of thermodynamics states that energy can never be made or destroyed
Sunlight transforms into trees, 
trees become oil, 
oil is oxidised into CO2.
Nothing is lost
Matter and energy transform endlessly in various states
All matter and everything that ever will exist
exists already.' 

Performance by and with installation artist Lawrence Malstaf, dancer / performer Liv Hanne Haugen, playwright Tale Næss, musician / performer Amund Sjølie Sveen and director Jon Tombre. 

http://festival-trajectoires.com/diy-manual-for-a-potential-future/

Nemo Observatorium 02002 at Festival Trajectoires

Stereolux
Nantes (F)

Nemo Observatorium 02002 - Styrofoam particles are blown around in a big transparent PVC cylinder by 5 strong fans. Visitors can take place one by one on the armchair in the middle of the whirlpool or observe from the outside. On the chair, in the eye of the storm it is calm and safe.Spectacular at first sight, this installation turns out to mesmerise as a kind of meditation machine. One can follow the seemingly cyclic patterns, focus on the different layers of 3D pixels or listen to its waterfall sound. One could call it a training device, challenging the visitor to stay centred and find peace in a fast changing environment. After a while the space seems to expand and one's sense of time deludes. Impressive and hypnotic.

http://festival-trajectoires.com/nemo-observatorium-02002/

Shrink 01995 at Festival Trajectoires

Stereolux
Nantes (F)

Shrink 01995 - Two large, transparent plastic sheets and a device that gradually sucks the air out from between them leave the body vacuum-packed and vertically suspended. The transparent tube inserted between the two surfaces allows the person inside the installation to regulate the flow of air. As a result of the increasing pressure between the plastic sheets, the surface of the packed body gradually freezes into multiple micro-folds. For the duration of the performance the person inside moves slowly and changes positions, which vary from an almost embryonic position to one resembling a crucified body.

At Festival Trajectoires there will be 6 Shrinks and the bodies of 6 performers.

https://festival-trajectoires.com/shrink-01995/

Transporter 02008 in 'Visions'

Les Halles
Brussels (B)

Transporter 02008 - Two conveyor belts of about 13m long are set up next to each other and running in opposite directions. People can lay down on them to be transported very slowly. Hidden under the surface an invisible mechanism produces a subtle yet intense tactile experience for the spine. Halfway the trajectory the visitors are confronted with two horizontal mirrors moving up and down above them.

Les Halles

Shrink 01995 at Chroniques 2018

Chroniques 2018
Aix-en-Provence (F)

Two large, transparent plastic sheets and a device that gradually sucks the air out from between them leave the body vacuum-packed and vertically suspended. The transparent tube inserted between the two surfaces allows the person inside the installation to regulate the flow of air. As a result of the increasing pressure between the plastic sheets, the surface of the packed body gradually freezes into multiple micro-folds. For the duration of the performance the person inside moves slowly and changes positions, which vary from an almost embryonic position to one resembling a crucified body.

At Chroniques 2018 there will be 3 Shrinks and the bodies of 3 performers.

https://chronique-s.org

Shrink 01995 at NU Performance Festival

Nu Performance Festival
Talinn (EE)

Two large, transparent plastic sheets and a device that gradually sucks the air out from between them leave the body vacuum-packed and vertically suspended. The transparent tube inserted between the two surfaces allows the person inside the installation to regulate the flow of air. As a result of the increasing pressure between the plastic sheets, the surface of the packed body gradually freezes into multiple micro-folds. For the duration of the performance the person inside moves slowly and changes positions, which vary from an almost embryonic position to one resembling a crucified body.

At NU Performance Festival 2018 there will be 5 Shrinks and the bodies of 5 performers.

https://saal.ee/en/festival/5305/about

Double Compass - solo exhibition

TETEM
Enschede (NL)

Compass is an orientation machine to wear around your waist. It directs you left and right while walking. It guides you through virtual corridors, rooms and doors programmed in the physical exhibition space, or any location. The apparatus imposes an attraction or repulsion on your waist, like you are in a magnetic field. You can explore this environment and discover a tactile architecture. The machine is programmed to make you follow an invisible map but you can choose between resisting to the machine or giving in and letting yourself be guided.

For the solo exhibition Double Compass at TETEM, Lawrence Malstaf developed a second machine, both Compasses not only follow an invisible map, but also interact with each other.

TETEM

Nemo Observatorium 02002 in 'VISIONS'

Les Halles
Brussels (B)

Nemo Observatorium 02002 will give you the unique opportunity to launch a hurricane and witness the consequences safe inside the eye of the cyclone or somewhere far removed where there is no chance of skidding.

Styrofoam particles are blown around in a big transparent PVC cylinder by 5 strong fans. Visitors can take place one by one on the armchair in the middle of the whirlpool or observe from the outside. On the chair, in the eye of the storm it is calm and safe.Spectacular at first sight, this installation turns out to mesmerise as a kind of meditation machine. One can follow the seemingly cyclic patterns, focus on the different layers of 3D pixels or listen to its waterfall sound. One could call it a training device, challenging the visitor to stay centered and find peace in a fast changing environment.

After a while the space seems to expand and one's sense of time deludes. Impressive and hypnotic.

Les Halles

D.I.Y - MANUAL FOR A POTENTIAL FUTURE

KHIO
Oslo (NO)

Today, our society suffers a future crisis. It seems nearly impossible to imagine a society radically different form the existing one. We are trapped in the realities of the present. The project DIY or manual for a possible future, is based on recognition that the world can not change if we are unable to think about new futures. More than ever, we therefore need utopias. 

‘The first law of thermodynamics states that energy can never be made or destroyed
Sunlight transforms into trees, 
trees become oil, 
oil is oxidised into CO2.
Nothing is lost
Matter and energy transform endlessly in various states
All matter and everything that ever will exist
exists already.' 

Performance by and with installation artist Lawrence Malstaf, dancer / performer Liv Hanne Haugen, playwright Tale Næss, musician / performer Amund Sjølie Sveen and director Jon Tombre. 

KHIO Oslo

Polygon 02016

Maintenant Festival
Rennes (F)

Polygon is a large kinetic structure composed of lightweight articulating tubes hanging from thin wires. Via a mechanism of motors and counterweights it becomes a geometric landscape that moves organically and adjusts shape and balance in response to the visitors. 

https://www.maintenant-festival.fr

D.I.Y - Manual for a potential future

FINN - Festspillene i Nord-Norge
Harstad (NO)

Today, our society suffers a future crisis. It seems nearly impossible to imagine a society radically different form the existing one. We are trapped in the realities of the present. The project DIY or manual for a possible future, is based on recognition that the world can not change if we are unable to think about new futures. More than ever, we therefore need utopias. 

‘The first law of thermodynamics states that energy can never be made or destroyed
Sunlight transforms into trees, 
trees become oil, 
oil is oxidised into CO2.
Nothing is lost
Matter and energy transform endlessly in various states
All matter and everything that ever will exist
exists already.' 

Performance by and with installation artist Lawrence Malstaf, dancer / performer Liv Hanne Haugen, playwright Tale Næss, musician / performer Amund Sjølie Sveen and director Jon Tombre. 

FINN Harstad

DIGGING INTO MY MAGNIFICENT TRASHBIN I'M SEARCHING FOR MY LIFE

FESTSPILLENE I NORD-NORGE / ARCTIC ARTS FESTIVAL
Harstad (NO)

We need each other to understand and experience ourselves in the world. Starting with shiny trashbins, five distinctive dance artists take the audience and search in their own lives in hope for healing and salvation. Sharing is caring!
Haugen Produksjoner takes the audience on a journey - out of the theater room and into reality, a reality that can also be poetic and full of movement.

Idea, concept: Anne Katrine Haugen
Dance Artists / Performers: Jenny Marie Svensson, Gerd Kaisa Vorren, Alexander Aarø, Jordi Cortes Molina and Anne Katrine Haugen 
Music: Erik Stifjell
Scenography / Installation: Lawrence Malstaf
Artistic guides: Kristina Junttila, Jon Tombre, Liv Hanne Haugen
Producer: Liv Hanne Haugen
Production: Haugen Productions

FINN Harstad

Exhale

When Art Meets Science - I Love Science Festival
Horta Hall, BOZAR Brussels (B)

During the ‘I Love Science’ festival BOZAR devotes three whole days to an investigation into the links between art and science. 

EXHALE (performance - installation)
A large inflatable is constantly changing shape, struggling with its environment or adapting to it? Visitors can sign up to visit the inside of this gigantic lung and witness some excerpts of the EXHALE- performance.
EXHALE  starts from a movement we all share: breathing. This process of inhaling and exhaling as an expression of our physical and mental states is in constant change and usually unconscious. Yet it can also be a portal to control psychosomatic phenomena like stress and anxiety. Breath connects mind and body, the yogi said a 1000 years ago. However in these eco-calyptic times where fear is the best selling currency, science tell us about earlier mass extinctions and the cycles of life in our earthly atmosphere. With scientific prose, dance and electronic sounds, the audience is invited inside a large inflated lung where performers and visitors become one and the invisible air is shared as a physical and tangible medium. ‘Breathing is the first and the last thing you will do, you will breath about 10000 liters of air today. Without breath, no life.’

Saturday 28 April 2018
14:00 - 21:30 : ongoing performance 
14:30 / 15:30 / 16:30 / 17:30 / 18:30  : 10” performance inside the bubble with dance and text interventions by Liv Hanne Haugen.
19:00 - 21:30 : 20” performance inside the bubble with live music by Per Martinsen/Mental Overdrive.

Sunday 29 April 2018
14:00 - 21:30: ongoing performance 
14:30 / 15:30 / 16:30 / 17:30 / 18:30  : 10” performance inside the bubble with dance and text interventions by Liv Hanne Haugen.

When Art Meets Science

Talk: The anti-automaton

When Art Meets Science - I Love Science Festival
BOZAR, Brussels (B)

Talk by Lawrence Malstaf. He will show material related to his practice as installation artist dealing with animated objects, anti-automation and coincidence.

COPING WITH COMPLEXITY - SCIENTIFIC AND ARTISTIC WAYS TO ORDER CHAOS

PROGRAMME: 
Host: Jean Paul Van Bendegem (VUB - Philosopher/Mathematician)
15:00 - Welcome
15:05 - Marleen Wynants (Director VUB Crosstalks): 'The first computers were women' 
16:40 - Talk by Lawrence Malstaf (artist): 'The anti-automaton'
15:50 - Michel Tombroff (ULB / University of California Santa Barbara): 'Tautological limitations in conceptual art: A proposal to represent the beauty of truth'
16:10 - André Ariew (University of Missouri): 'Abstract statistical ideas made simple: The case of Francis Galton’s quincunx'
16:40- Q&A + Break 
17:00 - Isar Goyvaerts (VUB): 'Symmetry in music: A means of exploring the modern Western classical repertoire'
17:30 - Bruno Letort (Ars Musica): 'Le pavillion Philips: Fusion des arts'
18:00 - Open discussion 
18:30 - Festival cocktail

More info: Crosstalks
REGISTRATION

Compass 02005

Zhi Art Museum
Chengdu (ROC)

ZHI ART MUSEUM is pleased to present the exhibition Open, celebrating the long-awaited official inauguration of the museum which marks a new cultural signpost in southwest China. Curated by ZHANG Ga and co-presented by ZHI ART MUSEUM and Chronus Art Center (CAC).

To open is also to make ready for adventure, to lose orientation in order to obtain cognition of a different dimension. Compass 02005 by Lawrence Malstaf is precisely such an uncanny apparatus that exercises its own machine logic on the participant. Perhaps here a power play is at work to tease out the conundrum of the human-machine interaction that questions the popular assumption and begs for an ethical reappraisal. 

Shrink & Nemo Observatorium

FILE Festival
CCBB, Rio de Janeiro (BR)

Nemo Observatorium 02002 - Styrofoam particles are blown around in a big transparent PVC cylinder by 5 strong fans. Visitors can take place one by one on the armchair in the middle of the whirlpool or observe from the outside. On the chair, in the eye of the storm it is calm and safe.Spectacular at first sight, this installation turns out to mesmerise as a kind of meditation machine. One can follow the seemingly cyclic patterns, focus on the different layers of 3D pixels or listen to its waterfall sound. One could call it a training device, challenging the visitor to stay centred and find peace in a fast changing environment. After a while the space seems to expand and one's sense of time deludes.

Shrink 01995 - Two large, transparent plastic sheets and a device that gradually sucks the air out from between them leave the body vacuum-packed and vertically suspended. The transparent tube inserted between the two surfaces allows the person inside the installation to regulate the flow of air. As a result of the increasing pressure between the plastic sheets, the surface of the packed body gradually freezes into multiple micro-folds. For the duration of the performance the person inside moves slowly and changes positions, which vary from an almost embryonic position to one resembling a crucified body.

http://file.org.br

In conversation

FILE Festival
CCBB, Rio de Janeiro (BR)

“Installations that look like performances. Performances that look like sculptures. Living installations depending on the visitor, where the public is exhibited and spectators are being immersed. Being in the middle. 
Training devices, anti-automatons and technology.
Animated objects. 
Coincidence.
Inspired by nature.

Looking into the future …”

This conversation between Lawrence Malstaf (artist) and Ischa Tallieu (Tallieu Art Office) will shed a light on the activities, installations and performances by Lawrence Malstaf and will give an insight in what drives and inspires the artist.

http://file.org.br

FILE SOLO 2017. Lawrence Malstaf featured on Google Arts & Culture

FILE SOLO at CCBB
São Paulo (BR)

Check 'FILE SOLO. Lawrence Malstaf - The Poetics of Immersion' on Google Arts & Culture here: https://artsandculture.google.com/exhibit/KwJCuqNdz06LLg

Shrink at FILE Belo Horizonte 2018

CCBB
Belo Horizonte (BR)

For this exhibition at CCBB Belo Horizonte, FILE Festival has chosen the theme “Electronic art in the disruptive age”. These exhibitions purpose a rupture at the traditional form of art appreciation, here the visitors can experience: new sensations and perceptions; senses the relationship between real and digital movement; interact with the works and immerse themselves into virtual reality.

Lawrence Malstaf
Shrink 01995 
FILE Festival Belo Horizonte 2018

Lawrence Malstaf - Biennale Némo

Le 104 - Les Faits du Hasard
Paris (F)

Conversations 02012
A couple of vibrating chairs are slowly moving and turning randomly through the space. They seem to search and reject each other with soft humming sounds. When a visitor passes by or sits down, the chairs hesitate and then carefully try out different patterns. The patterns are not designed; it is a self-organizing system where new compositions and new behavior arises spontaneously through the duration of the installation.

Biennale Némo
Le Centquatre
Lawrence Malstaf

Shrink at FILE Brasilia 2017

CCBB
Brasilia (BR)

The theme ‘Electronic Art in the Disruptive Age’ was chosen specifically for the Festival’s first edition in Brasilia. It presents innovative works which are arranged in four different groups – or aspects – which represent new behaviors in the contemporary world: Experiential Body, Kinetic Body, Virtual Body, and Playful Body.

Shrink 01995

FILE Brasilia

New Publication Lawrence Malstaf

FILE SOLO at CCBB
São Paulo (BR)

FILE SOLO 2017. Lawrence Malstaf: The poetics of immersion

“Lawrence Malstaf: The poetics of immersion” by Paula Perissinotto & Ricardo Barreto. FILE SOLO 2017 – Exhibition. Installations: 6 works with their own texts. “The edginess of the body” by Pieter T’Jonck. “A state of pure observation” by Steven Sourbron. “Lawrence Malstaf interviewed by Dominique Moulon”. “Man/Machine – or how to reassemble the globe. A short reflection on Lawrence Malstaf and his art practice” by Tale Næss. “That which lies in-between. Reflection after collaboration: A conversation with the artist Lawrence Malstaf” by Astri Fremmerlid.

Editorial Concept: Paula Perissinotto and Ricardo Barreto
Design: André Lenz
Year: 2017
Pages: 124

Event Horizon at KIKK Festival

KIKK Festival - Invisible Naratives
Galerie du Beffroi, Namur (B)

Between poetry and technology, artists are revealing the invisible, they tell us stories awaking our senses and showing possible worlds. The artworks disturb our reason and play with the imaginary, a visual, acoustic, luminous, geometric, tangible, abstract or hypnotic travel in the world of invisible narratives.

Event Horizon 02015
KIKK Festival

Nemo Observatorium - Nuit Blanche Brussels

Nuit Blanche Brussels - Power Games
Galerie du Parlement, Brussels (B)

A transparent cylinder, polystyrene particles and five fans… The instantly spectacular installation is in fact a hypnotic machine encouraging meditation. Nemo Observatorium 02002 can be watched from a seat placed inside the whirlpool or outside of the tube. Everything is calm and peaceful in the eye of the storm. Spectators can follow the circular movement of the balls, concentrating on the threedimensional forms they draw or listen to the cascade-like sound they make. Lawrence Malstaf challenges them to remain calm and focused in a constantly changing environment.

Nuit Blanche Brussels

Shrink at KIKK Festival

KIKK Festival - Invisible Naratives
Eglise d'Harscamp, Namur (B)

Two large, transparent plastic sheets and a device that gradually sucks the air out from between them leave the body vacuum-packed and vertically suspended. The transparent tube inserted between the two surfaces allows the person inside the installation to regulate the flow of air. As a result of the increasing pressure between the plastic sheets, the surface of the packed body gradually freezes into multiple micro-folds. For the duration of the performance the person inside moves slowly and changes positions, which vary from an almost embryonic position to one resembling a crucified body.

At KIKK Festival there will be 6 Shrinks and the bodies of 6 performers.

KIKK Festival
Shrink

PUST / EXHALE

Dansens Hus
Oslo (NO)

Dance by Liv Hanne Haugen and electronic sounds, performed live by one of Norways leading and internationally acclaimed electronic musicians Per Martinsen, communicate abstractly and open - sometimes violently and loud, other times soft and quiet, with each other, always in presence of the sound of breathing. Visual artist Lawrence Malstaf is manipulating, pulling and re-shaping the bubble in a dance that also makes the audience move. 
Finally the audience has the chance to monitor their own breath standing side by side on a line while dropping pebbles in a papercup leaving us wondering how many more breaths to go. 

Dansens Hus

POLYGON

RakettNatt
Tromsø (NO)

Polygon is a large kinetic structure composed of lightweight articulating tubes hanging from thin wires. Via a mechanism of motors and counterweights it becomes a geometric landscape that moves organically and adjusts its shape and balance unpredictably. 

Video Polygon
Lawrence Malstaf

LAWRENCE MALSTAF WITH 'OVERVIEW' IN BUBBLING UNIVERSES

FILE SÃO PAULO 2017 - GROUPEXHIBITION
Fiesp Cultural Center, São Paulo (BR)

Bubbling Universes - "The emergence of social networks has led to a multiplicity of events on a scale never seen before. The unchecked proliferation of information has now reached an astonishing level and is stored in an unprecedented amount of storage, accessed by thousands of networked data devices. This exponential increase in accessible information overwhelms us all in an incessant and overwhelming flow of concepts, images, opinions and desires. No one is exempt from this cross-contamination, no discipline succeeds in remaining within set boundaries. The proliferation of worlds and tendencies carries us into an indeterminate plurality. All and everything is expanding, like a star in its Red Giant phase, ready to explode at any time. What was immense and infinite has become small when faced with the multiverse. We live in an age of bubbling universes." 
Paula Perissinotto and Ricardo Barreto (FILE Founders and Organizers)

FILE Festival 2017 - Bubbling Universe
FILE SOLO - Lawrence Malstaf
Lawrence Malstaf

Lawrence Malstaf - The poetics of immersion

FILE SOLO
CCBB - São Paulo (BR)

FILE - Festival Internacional de Linguagem Eletrônica  and CCBB come together to present an individual exhibition by the Belgian artist Lawrence Malstaf, opening on 22 July 2017, as the inaugural show of FILE SOLO, confirming the expansion of FILE Festival, that is now in its 18th year.

FILE SOLO - Lawrence Malstaf
CCBB - São Paulo
FILE Festival 2017 - Bubbling Universes
Lawrence Malstaf

L'Ososphère

La COOP
Strasbourg (F

Conversations & Sandbible by Lawrence Malstaf are part of the parcours artistique at L'Ososphère in Strasbourg (F)

nuitnumérique #14 kinestezi

Saint-Ex - Centre Culturel Numérique
Reims (F)

Compass, 02005 is an orientation machine to wear around your waist. It directs you left and right while walking. It guides you through virtual corridors, rooms and doors programmed in the physical exhibition space, or any location. The apparatus imposes an attraction or repulsion on your waist, like you are in a magnetic field. You can explore this environment and discover a tactile architecture. The machine is programmed to make you follow an invisible map but you can choose between resisting to the machine or giving in and letting yourself be guided.

Saint-Ex Reims

Nachtelijk Symposium

KVS & On Tour
Brussels, Mechelen, Antwerpen, Gent (B)

Mesut Arslan, Platform 0090 & KVS.

Mesut Arslan places the actors and the text in artist Lawrence Malstaf’s installation of spinning tops. The audience is gathered around an open arena in which not only the tops, but also the characters, start revolving around each other. In this way the director sets the inner identity of a family and the surrounding audience in motion. 

Lawrence Malstaf
KVS

Où sont les sons? / Where are sounds?

Centrale for Contemporary Art
Brussels (B)

Where Are Sounds? is an exhibition put together by Nicole Gingras, an independent curator interested in the links between sound and image, and in listening as a means of relating to the world. With regard to this exhibition, the curator comments: “Where are sounds? Where are they going? This double question, so simple at first sight, reveals several essential aspects specific to listening, including the predispositions of listeners at all sound events. The exhibition also allows us to examine the ways in which sounds manifest themselves and travel through a given site, in public places or during our daily wanderings. Several artists have explored these issues. Some work in sound, probing the intensity of sonic masses, while others are interested in noise or aural traces; still others focus on silence, the near-inaudible or imperceptible. Finally, some convert a sound phenomenon into an object, a sculpture or temporal experience. Where Are Sounds? suggests that it is not only possible to hear a sound, but also to see it, touch it, be pervaded by it.”

With Christoph De Boeck (B), Raymond Gervais (CA), Aernoudt Jacobs (B), Anne-Françoise Jacques (CA), Rolf Julius (D), Yann Leguay (F/B) et Gaétan Rusquet (B), Bernhard Leitner (AT), Lawrence Malstaf (B/NO), Dominique Petitgand (F), Martin Tétreault (CA) and dieb13 (AT), Davide Tidoni (IT/B), Katerina Undo (GR/B). 

Overtoon
Centrale for Contemporary Art

MELTING

Grand Theatre
Groningen (NL)

MELTING is an investigation of various questions related to the scientific, economic and psychological reasons for, and consequences of, our presumed current climate crisis.

Grand Theatre Groningen
Lawrence Malstaf
Amund Sjølie Sveen
Slagr

EAST, SCENOGRAPHY FOR A DANCE-SOLO BY ARCO RENZ

De Brakke Grond - Schouwburg Kortrijk - Kunstencentrum Vooruit
Amsterdam (NL) - Kortrijk (B) - Gent (B)

What an amazing, obsessive show!
 
Drawing from fifteen years of creative experience between Europe and Asia, Arco Renz throws his body to create seemingly alien movements, yet part of our artistic and cultural background. 
EAST exposes and simultaneously shakes up the stereotyped portrayals of the differences between East and West. We are in another world, our body and soul engaged in a thrilling dialogue with the surrounding lights, the staging and the music played live.
The performance evolves inside 'Spheres', an installation by Lawrence Malstaf.

Kobalt Works EAST

De Brakke Grond

Schouwburg Kortrijk

Vooruit

FOLDING: HYBRID MATTERS PRODUCTION GRANT AND TOURING EXHIBITION

Forum Box
Helsinki (FI)

Lawrence Malstaf his proposal FOLDING stems from a research project on traditional origami techniques and contemporary 3D modeling software and explores the borderline between representation and abstraction. The aim is to accumulate a series of full scale kinetic sculptures based on 3D scans of the exhibition visitors. The sculptures expand and shrink according to motion patterns of the public in the space. Thus the visitors are reanimating the abstracted models of earlier visitors and create a responsive choir of breathing avatars. A metaphor for the blurring boundaries between animate nature and inanimate simulation and modeling technology.

Hybrid Matters - Production Grant

Hybrid Matters - Touring Exhibition

 Forum Box, Helsinki (FI) 

Première PUST / Exhale

DanseFestival Barents
Arctic Culture Centre, Hammerfest (NO)

This project has its starting point in a movement we all share: breathing. Through dance, installation art and electronic music and by roles between performer and audience which are sliding and shifting, we hope to move from an I to a we, from individual to community. The project seeks to strengthen the self-esteem through community as a starting point. A multitude of unique breath. The project seeks to create a space where the public will own habits and BREATHE conscious to contribute to greater freedom of action, individually and collectively.

Idea: Liv Hanne Haugen - Concept: Lawrence Malstaf and Liv Hanne Haugen - Composer and musician: Per Martinsen - Installation and light: Lawrence Malstaf - Dance and voice: Liv Hanne Haugen - Text: Vibeke Thorp - Producer: Anne Katrine Haugen - Consultant: Margunn Kilde - Production: Haugen Productions

DanseFestival Barents

Cosmos - Project Daejeon 2016

Daejeon Museum of Art, Daejeon
South Korea

The theme of Project Daejeon 2016 is COSMOS. The quest for the origins of life in the universe has inspired many artists. Project Daejeon 2016 has an ambition to break with the stereotypical view of the world and humanity and wishes to give a deeper insight into art and science through various collaborations.

Event Horizon: Dust particles are suspended in a light beam which is slowly scanning a dark room. Visitors can enter wearing a protective gas mask and witness the silent complexity of matter with millions of fragments forming a temporary micro universe. Remote sounds of human masses and activity fill the otherwise empty room.

Premiere 'State & Ecstasy'

FESTSPILLENE I NORD-NORGE
Harstad (NO)

'State & Ecstasy' is a performance with dance, installation, music, poetry: five artists dig into collectivity, both politically and existentially. The result is a subjective and beautiful examination of individualisation and freedom, and a fervent desire - both in art and politics - to achieve a collective ecstasy.

With Amund Sjølie Sveen, Lawrence Malstaf, Jon Tombre, Liv Hanne Haugen and Tale Næss.

FINN, Harstad (NO)

Event Horizon at Mapping Festival

Mapping Festival
Geneva (CH)

In the installation Event Horizon, dust particles are suspended in a beam of light that is slowly scanning a dark room. Visitors are invited to wear a protective gas mask and, thus made conscious of their own breath, witness the silent complexity of matter with millions of fragments forming a temporary micro-universe. Matter is taking centre stage, dancing in the light and airstreams of the black box, with remote sounds of human masses and activity filling the otherwise empty room.

With environmental challenges, population growth and our ever-expanding needs in mind, the Malstaf brothers sought a way to zoom out and contemplate our temporary existence on spaceship Earth. The aim: "Making a work with a minimum amount of material and the biggest possible spatial impact."

Mapping Festival

Mirror & Shrink at SPOR Festival

SPOR Festival
Aarhus (DK)

Mirror 02002: A dark room with a large vibrating mirror deforms the reflection of the visitor. At first the vibrations are so subtle that you might wonder if it are your own eyes that are having trouble to focus. But gradually it becomes more obvious that the mirror is actually moving and mutating the mirror image into a Francis Bacon portrait. Yet the visual impression is so real that some people feel the urge to check if their body is actually decomposing or not. In the end the body evaporates and disappears.

Shrink 01995: Two large, transparent plastic sheets and a device that gradually sucks the air out from between them leave the body (in this case the artist himself) vacuum-packed and vertically suspended. The transparent tube inserted between the two surfaces allows the person inside the installation to regulate the flow of air. As a result of the increasing pressure between the plastic sheets, the surface of the packed body gradually freezes into multiple micro-folds. For the duration of the performance the person inside moves slowly and changes positions, which vary from an almost embryonic position to one resembling a crucified body.

SPOR Festival

FESTIVAL VIA 2016: PERCEPTIONS

Le Manège
Maubeuge (F)

Nevel a matrix of nine pivoting walls forms a labyrinth whose architecture continuously changes. A sequence of different compositions creates choreography of spaces flowing into one another. It is an auto choreographic space to wander and get lost in, like in a mutating city, to linger and surrender to the disorientation

Exposition Perceptions

Burning Ice #9 - Kaaitheater

Kaaistudio's
Brussels (B)

During BURNING ICE #9 Lawrence Malstaf presents an adapted version of Tipping Point. A large water-filled disc carefully balances on top of a steel support, tilting up and down. An air bubble slowly travels around, disrupting the disc’s balance.

Malstaf shows how small changes can generate enormous consequences. The findings of the Norwegian Polar Institute were his starting point. They investigated the impact of human activity on the arctic ecosystem. Air and water are the main elements in this vast yet delicate thermodynamic process.

East, Scenography for a dance-solo by Arco Renz

Les Brigitinnes
Brussels (B)

What an amazing, obsessive show!
 
Drawing from fifteen years of creative experience between Europe and Asia, Arco Renz throws his body to create seemingly alien movements, yet part of our artistic and cultural background. 
EAST exposes and simultaneously shakes up the stereotyped portrayals of the differences between East and West. We are in another world, our body and soul engaged in a thrilling dialogue with the surrounding lights, the staging and the music played live.
The performance evolves inside a spheric installation by Lawrence Malstaf.

Les Brigittines - Tickets

Kobalt Works

Artefact: Up in the Air

STUK
Leuven (B)

In the installation Event Horizon dust particles are suspended in a beam of light that is slowly scanning a dark room. Visitors are invited to wear a protective gas mask and witness the silent complexity of matter with millions of fragments forming a temporary micro-universe. Conscious of one’s own breath, matter is taking centre stage, dancing in the light and airstreams of the black box with remote sounds of human masses and activity filling the otherwise empty room.

With environmental challenges, population growth and our ever-expanding needs in mind, the brothers Malstaf sought a way to zoom out and contemplate our temporary existence on spaceship Earth. The aim: ‘Making a work with a minimum amount of material and the biggest possible spatial impact.’ 

FESTIVAL EXIT 2016: PERCEPTIONS

Maison des Arts
Créteil (F)

Nevel a matrix of nine pivoting walls forms a labyrinth whose architecture continuously changes. A sequence of different compositions creates choreography of spaces flowing into one another. It is an auto choreographic space to wander and get lost in, like in a mutating city, to linger and surrender to the disorientation.

Exposition Perceptions

FOLDING: HYBRID MATTERS PRODUCTION GRANT AND TOURING EXHIBITION

Kunsthal Grenland / Nikolaj Kunsthall / Forum Box
Porsgrunn (NO) / Copenhagen (DK) / Helsinki (FI)

Lawrence Malstaf his proposal FOLDING stems from a research project on traditional origami techniques and contemporary 3D modeling software and explores the borderline between representation and abstraction. The aim is to accumulate a series of full scale kinetic sculptures based on 3D scans of the exhibition visitors. The sculptures expand and shrink according to motion patterns of the public in the space. Thus the visitors are reanimating the abstracted models of earlier visitors and create a responsive choir of breathing avatars. A metaphor for the blurring boundaries between animate nature and inanimate simulation and modeling technology.

Hybrid Matters - Production Grant

Hybrid Matters - Touring Exhibition

- 19 March - 8 May 2016: Kunsthal Grenland, Porsgrunn (NO)
- 20 May - 31 July 2016: Nikolaj Kunsthall, Copenhagen (DK)
- 24 November - 18 December 2016: Forum Box, Helsinki (FI) 

MELTING

BIT Teatergarasjen
Bergen (NO)

MELTING is an investigation of various questions related to the scientific, economic and psychological reasons for, and consequences of, our presumed current climate crisis.

BIT Teatergarasjen

Lawrence Malstaf

Amund Sjølie Sveen

Slagr

ART WITHOUT CONDITIONS

GALERIE TRIANGLE BLEU
Stavelot (B)

'... Seduced by the generous offer of the Triangle Bleu gallery of curating and presenting an exhibition, Jacques Charlier has made a selection of artists, both young and less young, who in their work remain insensitive to external pressures ... Recommended for lovers of the unexpected.' (Stephen Falk)

Galerie Triangle Bleu

BOZAR ELECTRONIC ARTS FESTIVAL 2015

BOZAR
Brussels (B)

WYSIWYG? OR WHAT YOU SEE IS NOT WHAT YOU GET?!

Media Arts Exhibition

Digital or analog? New or old technologies? How does the medium affect the way reality is perceived and represented ? How do we want to perceive reality or how can we? Real and virtual reality, facts and fiction are today inseparable. There are unlimited possibilities for the creation of images. Within the context of art and technology we re-examine the essence of representation and perception, and this by means of creating immersive , interactive and kinetic works. The selected installations approach in different ways the relationships between registration and medium, projection and content, perception and interpretation.

BEAF15

BOZAR

Transporter

MiramirO
Sint-Baafsabdij, Gent (B)

Transporter 02008 is an installation consisting of two conveyors moving in the opposite direction and a mirror midway moving up and down. The audience chooses this time for a horizontal position and let themselves literally be carried away by the installation. Be prepared for a strange encounter with yourself.

Lawrence Malstaf

MiramirO

VORMIDABLE: Shrink & Conversations

Vormidable - Museum Beelden aan Ze
Den Haag (NL)

Shrink 01995 - Two large, transparent plastic sheets and a device that gradually sucks the air out from between them leave the body (in this case the artist himself) vacuum-packed and vertically suspended. The transparent tube inserted between the two surfaces allows the person inside the installation to regulate the flow of air. As a result of the increasing pressure between the plastic sheets, the surface of the packed body gradually freezes into multiple micro-folds. For the duration of the performance the person inside moves slowly and changes positions, which vary from an almost embryonic position to one resembling a crucified body. 

Conversations 02012 - A couple of vibrating chairs are slowly moving and turning randomly through the space. They seem to search and reject each other with soft humming sounds. When a visitor passes by or sits down, the chairs hesitate and then carefully try out different patterns. The patterns are not designed; it is a self-organizing system where new compositions and new behavior arises spontaneously through the duration of the installation.

Museum Beelden aan Zee

Scenography for Oz + Pavilion

Hålogaland Teater
Teaterplassen , 9007 Tromsø (NO)

Directed by Jon Tombre

Hålogaland Teater

SHRINK PERFORMANCE

Barentsspektakel 2015
Kirkenes (NO)

The Shrink-performance will include two Russian and two Norwegian dancers, a large metal scaffold and loads of plastic. The dancers couple up, one Russian and one Norwegian, and vacuum-seal each other; their bodies moving slowly, pausing, changing their pose until they are completely wrapped in plastic and not able to move anymore.

Barentsspektakel

New Installation: Event Horizon

Small Projects
Tromsø (NO)

Event Horizon - Dust particles are suspended in a light beam which is slowly scanning a dark room. Visitors can enter wearing a protective mask and witness the silent complexity of matter with millions of fragments forming a temporary micro universe. Remote sounds of human masses and activity fill the otherwise empty room.

Small Projects

Exhibition Homo Religiosus

Perspektivet Museum
Storgata 95, 9006 Tromsø (NO)

The ongoing exhibition 'Homo Religiosus' is about the spiritual world and the quest for meaning and coherence in life. This is a dimension that art installations and music can help mediate. In art, the existential and religious dimension comes to expression as a type of insight that transcends dispassionate, reason-based knowledge. Perhaps the art can be viewed as a window facing inwards.

Homo Religiosus is produced through collaboration between the visual artist Lawrence Malstaf and Perspektivet Museum.

Library 2014 and Portraits 2014 by Lawrence Malstaf. 

Photo: Mari Hildung/PEM