tele-present water by David Bowen is part of the ZKM Collection and now semi-permanent on display in the exhibition Writing the History of the Future.

When artist David Bowen took a sailing trip on Lake Superior in Minnesota in 2010, he was fascinated by the waves’ movements against the boat and how quickly his body adapted to them. Even afterwards, with solid ground underfoot, he could still feel the water’s gentle motion. Bowen’s installation tele-present water attempts to recreate that effect of telepresence, the feeling of being present in a faraway place. 

In his piece, a fragile lattice from wooden rods hangs from transparent nylon threads, seemingly suspended in space. The threads connect the lattice to a set of parallel rods. These, in turn, are connected to poles that move the whole installation by means of seventeen motors. Like the arms of a puppeteer, the poles rise and fall, setting off wave-like motions in the grid of parallel rods and the wooden lattice below. 

tele-present water also links to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) buoy station 51003 in the Pacific, which records wave height and frequency data in real time and transmits it to the exhibition space. This means the installation’s movements correspond to actual information on Pacific Ocean waves. A computer translates the buoy’s data into mechanical movements for the wooden lattice to replicate. If the Pacific is calm, the installation moves in gentle waves, whereas stormy seas cause it to break into a wild dance. 

tele-present water is an installation that fuses nature and technology, as well as indoor and outdoor space. In doing so, it grapples with questions of immediacy and involvement in a world where everything is connected to everything else. (Author: Julia Ihls)

ZKM Collection
Writing the History of the Future

• Visiting Artist Lecture
  Rhode Island School of Design department of Digital + Media
  Providence (USA)
• Precision and Uncertainty in a World of Data conference
  Johns Hopkins University
  Baltimore (USA) 
  

the journey (work in progress) - is an installation using multibeam sonar seafloor data collected during a 2,570-mile transit on the Pacific Ocean from Astoria, Oregon to Honolulu, Hawaii, July of 2019. During this journey aboard Research Vessel Falkor, a wide swath of seafloor was scanned using a sophisticated onboard multi-beam sonar depth sensor. The data gathered from entire journey is converted to an 3D model surfaces of the seafloor underneath the vessel as it transited the Pacific Ocean. 

For the installation, these 3D models are carved into individual sections of clear acrylic and set end to end recreating an approximately 25-foot scaled installation of the 2500-mile transit in the gallery space. An RGB led strip  installed in the bottom of the acrylic sections and programmed to illuminate a section of the journey chasing across the gallery space. This recreates a sense of movement illustrating the vessels journey across the Pacific Ocean as it scanned the seafloor.

David Bowen

In ACT, Kris Verdonck explores various aspects of the relation between the human on the verge of disappearing in the work of Samuel Beckett. ACT approaches Beckett in three ways: with a monologue with Beckett texts (Stories and texts for nothing), performed by Johan Leysen, with a scientist, invited to react to Beckett and with an autonomous scenography, a possible landscape for a Beckett text.

The variety and multidisciplinary approach reflect the complexity of Beckett’s work and are at the same time an attempt to literally take apart this complexity. The triptych of Science, theatre and high-tech show, as in three acts, each a different facet of the diamond ‘Beckett’. They deepen each other’s experience: a particular way of performing brings a scientific insight to life and vice versa, a performative scenography zooms in on the underlying world of or perhaps after the actor and offers a more contemplative experience.

A production of A Two Dogs Company & Het Zuidelijk Toneel (NL)

A Two Dogs Company / Kris Verdonck
Het Nationale Theater, Den Haag (NL)

Murmur will be screened at the 38th FIFA - Festival International du Film sur l'Art in Montréal, Canada, FIFA Experimental program. 

Murmur is a collaboration between Jan Locus & Stijn Demeulenaere.
Brussels was built on a swamp, today there is only one tiny part of Brussels that is still officially a swamp. Although continually threatened by development the area stayed intact largely due to being ensnared between two railroad tracks. Just before first light, filmmaker Jan Locus and sound artist Stijn Demeulenaere recorded the dawn chorus. The city drone permeates the sound of the swamp, and a strange mix enfolds between the sound of an awakening nature and a human presence. Urban drone and bird song merge to a (un)familiar murmur.

Murmur knew its cinematic world premiere at the 2020 IFFR, International Film Festival Rotterdam (NL) and was selected for the 2020 Rencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin in Paris (FR) and the Festival International du Film sur l'Art, Montréal (CA). 
The work also won the 2nd prize at The Engine Room International Sound Art Award.

38th FIFA - Festival International du Film sur l'Art
Murmur
Stijn Demeulenaere
Jan Locus

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

SPHERES-performance by Lawrence Malstaf - A large inflated sphere is moving slowly through the space. It contracts and expands at irregular intervals. The performer appears and disappears inside this synthetic organ where the smallest moving detail affects the whole.  

Laws and principles are what we use when we cannot handle the complexity of reality.
Everything influences everything. All the time. All at once!

MASS #2 by Kris Verdonck - MASS #2 is a poetic, moving landscape. A graphite-grey mass flows slowly as if it was water. The matter appears light and yet heavy at the same time. And, as if tectonic plates are interacting, the spectator sees mountains and valleys created before his eyes, only to dissolve in the next instant. A living landscape, geology in a time-lapse.