Is what we see really what it seems? The series BOGUS I-II-III consists of three variations on the same principle: they are each time enormous inflatable sculptures, made out of the black fabric characteristic of the theatre. These automated inflatable sculptures appear and disappear again into their respective boxes. Together, the three installations form a landscape of performative objects. They suggest a post-apocalyptic environment, after the end of humanity, when machines have continued without us and have taken proportions we couldn’t have imagined up until now. At the same time, they are sculptures an image of the alienation, the violence and the spectrality of a society in which everything has been turned into a commodified disposable. The size and ambiguous material of these sculptures turn the BOGUS series into a series of uncanny entities. Or as the Viennese philosopher Günther Anders would formulate it: we are so clueless and breathless when confronted with our own products, as if they were objects delivered to our homes, unsolicited, by inhabitants of a strange planet. 

Parallel to BOGUS I-II-III Kris Verdonck presents the performance SOMETHING (out of nothing) at Kaaitheater on 22 and 23 May 2019.

Kunstenfestivaldesarts
Kris Verdonck

IOMA, No.D-01, 798 Art Center, Chaoyang District, Beijing (ROC)

Until 28 July 2019

Solo-exhibition curated by Chen Yunbing

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 IMOA 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. 

POLYGON 02016 - Imagine a large technical construction suspended above your head. Although it is a kinetic structure composed of lightweight articulating 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.

SPRING Utrecht
Lawrence Malstaf

Enfolding Space - We spend most of our everyday life in static interiors. In rooms that are angular shaped, with levelled, even floors and confined by straight walls. Imagine an architectural space that is dynamic instead. A flexible space that shapes itself according to your body and your movements. With his newest project Enfolding Space, Dutch artist Teun Vonk experiments with creating architectural space of truly human proportions, that engages the sensibility of the entire body. He is developing a material that is fluid, intuïtive and playful, and has the potency to change the way you think about architecture forever.
During Wonderlands // smART! XTRA 4.0 X AQB OPEN HOUSE you become part of Teun Vonk’s extensive research project as you can play and experiment with the material. Vonk will use your feedback and experiences to develop the  prototype for Enfolding Space.
Enfolding Space is being developed by Studio Tony Spark with support of V2_lab for the unstable media, Rotterdam. 

Trafó House

22 May 2019 KFDA19, Kaaitheater, Brussels (B)
23 May 2019 KFDA19, Kaaitheater, Brussels (B)
24 May 2019 Spring Festival, Stadsschouwburg, Utrecht (NL)
25 May 2019 Spring Festival, Stadsschouwburg, Utrecht (NL) 

What is the place of the human in a world in which ecological catastrophe and technology are fundamentally challenging this position? The new performance by Kris Verdonck explores the physical and mental state of being in the face of an impending extinction.
The combination of a merciless desire for profit and growth with technological developments, has reduced the human to a disposable object. Making the landscape in which we live inhabitable is the next step. What remains after social, economic and ecological elimination? The dancers wandering around in SOMETHING, are oftentimes not more than silhouettes or shadows. They are the ghosts that are the consequence of the destructive dynamics between humanity and the landscape, which in the performance is evoked by large inflatable sculptures, noise cello player Leila Bordreuil and a robot drum. Parallel to the performance, one or more installations are presented in a museum context. Performative objects will create a similar environment in the white cube as they do in the black box. Theatre flows over into the museum and back.

In parallel with the performance at Kaaitheater, Kris Verdonck’s installation series BOGUS I-II-III will be on display at Kanal – Centre Pompidou. A performance ticket gives you free access on the same day. Opening hours: WED 12:00 > 18:00 & THU 12:00 > 22:00

Production A Two Dogs Company / ICK Amsterdam

Kris Verdonck / A Two Dogs Company
Kunstenfestivaldesarts
SPRING Utrecht

Until 9 June 2019

The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new.
(Samuel Beckett, Murphy)

In the installation DETAIL, a large and massive boulder hangs on the ceiling. It is hanging on a steel cable, on a ball bearing, allowing it to fully turn around its axis. The ball bearing is put in motion by a steel wheel rotated by a motor which takes its energy from solar panels. The whole chain leads to a relatively simple situation: whenever the sun shines, the boulder turns around its axis. Once the sun shines, and therefore the stone starts to revolve, the mechanism is simultaneously unrelenting: the fatalism of a world that has to and will turn. A mobile with sunlight. A surreal image with an undertone of danger and yet fascinating at the same time. 
The whole (complicated) technical construction has no other goal than to have the “poetry” of a heavy colossus float and turn around. DETAIL is in this sense a pointless use of knowledge and material which makes it even all the more alienating. The question can also be put forward as to whether many other developments that we call ‘technical progress’ really do help the world. The destructive potential of ever greater, faster, more efficient and automatic algorithms, processors, motors and fire power assert their influence on a daily basis in wars and in the depletion of our planet. Where is technological knowledge taking us and does it make us able to handle the problems of our age for the most part caused by ‘technological progress’? DETAIL is then also a stationary situation: frozen, hanging in the air, turning in circles in a vacuum.

The TENDENCIES exhibition focuses on works that question scientific and technological innovations as much as they incorporate them. For this fourth edition, it looks at our relationship with possible futures, be they dystopian or utopian. 

TENDENCIES '19
Kris Verdonck

Until 19 May 2019

cloud piano (2014) plays the keys of a piano based on the movements and shapes of the clouds. A camera pointed at the sky captures video of the clouds. Custom software uses the video of the clouds in real-time to articulate a robotic device that presses the corresponding keys on the piano. The system is set in motion to function as if the clouds are pressing the keys on the piano as they move across the sky and change shape. The resulting sound is generated from the unique key patterns created by ethereal forms that build, sweep, fluctuate and dissipate in the sky.

http://www.itaucultural.org.br
http://www.dwbowen.com/cloud-piano