Tag: Exhibition

IDFA DocLab: Exhibition

The range of different projects in this exhibition means you’re assured of finding new perspectives.

In Future Botanica, you can get your virtual hands dirty as a futuristic gardener: with an augmented reality app you design new plant species to shape your own vision of the future of nature and technology. Groundbreaking audio project Drift also gives an alternate glimpse of the future: this generative audio experience paints a picture of how the climate crisis and rising sea levels will present us with a sink-or-swim moment – or have we already reached that point? Sincerely, Victor Pike (also presented in a full-dome version at DocLab at the Planetarium) also uses AI-generated material. But, in this case, to reconstruct fragmented memories from the past. In contrast, there’s nothing artificial to be seen in Lisa Schamlé’s live performance Me, a Depiction. As a living component of her own installation, she explores our ideal of beauty and seeks confrontation with her own body—and with the spectators.

Composition

1. Drift

Nienke Huitenga, Hay Kranen, Lieven Heeremans | Netherlands | 2024 | 750 min
Synopsis

It’s 2024, or—time doesn’t actually matter so much—2529: an octopus as narrator, old dikes that once formed the contours of land. In an generative audio experience, a podcast that is not a podcast, Drift connects rising sea levels and the climate crisis to the rise of AI. This story world combines the imaginary with factual sources, such as the IPCC climate report and real-time weather forecasts by the Dutch meteorological institute. In a distant future, society has learned hard lessons from environmental neglect. Due to pollution and rising sea levels, the Netherlands, such as it once was, no longer exists. The waters have now been injected with AI. A techno-liquid environment serves as a living repository of knowledge, merging ancient wisdom with futuristic insights. The pace and rhythm of the story are synchronized with the lunar phases and the tides, moving away from the rigid mechanical clock that dictates human life, and back to the way Mother Earth intended. Technology and nature combine to create a new reality that the listener can drift through.

Timeslots & tickets via IDFA Eventbrite

2. Future Botanica

Nienke Huitenga, Hay Kranen, Lieven Heeremans | Netherlands | 2024 | 750 min
Synopsis

The idea that nature and technology are incompatible is outdated. Nature is full of cultivated elements introduced to serve the needs of human beings. The nature around us is subjected to -isms such as anthropocentrism, colonialism and capitalism. Add to this new technological systems such as AI and robotics, from which autonomous entities emerge that will probably also merge with nature, and an infinite number of possible future scenarios unfold. These speculations are the subject of the innovative augmented reality app Future Botanica. The app allows the user to design ecosystems with new nature using an AI. These virtual ecosystems are then planted in existing physical nature: you superimpose digital designs—one of the proposed scenarios or one you make yourself—on existing landscapes. By making your imaginings visible, you can safely explore ideas, expectations, fears and desires regarding the future of the natural environment. Winner of the Film Fund DocLab Interactive Grant 2024. 

Timeslots via IDFA

3. Me, a Depiction

Lisa Schamlé | Netherlands | 2024 | 30 min
Synopsis

In an intimate space it can feel slightly uncomfortable, voyeuristic even, to watch Lisa Schamlé draped as a living part of her own performance/installation on a mirrored object. In the mirror, Schamlé looks not only at herself, but also back at you, seeking contact with her audience in order to involve it actively in the process taking place. In this third and final part of her trilogy on sexuality, Schamlé reclaims the autonomy of her body from where it has been lost: in the public domain, that abstract area where the female body is always exposed to the objectifying and normative gaze of the other. A gaze that has an absurd degree of power over the way women see themselves, and through which they often judge themselves, and each other, mercilessly. Schamlé strives to escape the suffocating dictate of an idealized body image. This raises the question whether in art the gaze can become inquiring rather than judgmental. Winner of the Film Fund DocLab Interactive Grant 2024.

Timeslots & tickets via IDFA

 

4. Sincerely, Victor Pike

Gregor Petrikovič | United Kingdom, Slovakia | 2023 | 12 min
Synopsis

A poor memory leads Gregor Petrikovič to make audio recordings of conversations with loved ones, friends and acquaintances. Since 2016, he has been building an archive of anecdotes and recollections. With AI-generated visuals, Sincerely, Victor Pike, winner of the SOLO AI Award 2024, combines these faceless voices in a patchwork to produce a collective memory around the semi-fictional figure Victor Pike. The dreamlike, nostalgically grainy quality of the images raises questions about authenticity and the nature of memory. The images are clearly not real; the shapes and settings are recognizable, but full of anomalous and alienating detail. Cars fly through the air, bodies merge. At the same time, this may actually be true to the nature of memories, which lie on the boundary between the real and the surreal. This not only questions the relationship between technology and memory, but also challenges the notion of AI as an instrument detached from humans, precisely because it is used as a means to portray something as subjective as memories.

Timeslots & tickets via IDFA

About IDFA DocLac

DocLab is an interdisciplinary platform for interactive and immersive documentary art. DocLab is seen as the most significant première platform for interactive documentaries internationally.  IDFA DocLab pushes the boundaries of how we perceive and engage with non-fiction narratives by blending art, reality, and technologies. Founded in 2007, it fulfills a pioneering role in the turbulent development of digital storytelling, virtual reality, live performance, and artificial intelligence. Just as, more than a century ago, filmmakers discovered how they could use the language of film, DocLab now offers a platform to a new generation of makers through which they can invent their own languages and experiment with new forms of narrative and presentation.

Exhibition & Playrooms @droog is one of the main locations of the DocLab program. Here you play, explore, and experience interactive documentary projects that use VR, AR, AI, games, new media, and performances. Entry is free, but you need to reserve online via idfa.nl/doclab to secure your spot. New this year are the DocLab Playrooms. That’s where makers and the audience meet each other to playtest new projects, formats, and technologies. Explore the full program of IDFA DocLab at idfa.nl/doclab.

About IDFA

The International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) is once again bringing an exciting selection of the world’s best documentaries to Amsterdam this year, from November 14 until 24. Immerse yourself in new work from emerging talent and established filmmakers, with world premieres, festival favorites, and thematic programs.

 

Exhibition: Droog Archives

Droog Archives is a semi-permanent exhibition in which parts of the extensive Droog archive are shown through texts. photographs, films and artefacts. A timeline highlights projects that Droog has initiated over the past 30 years, accompanied by Droog classics. In line with the simultaneous BODY HEAT exhibition, this edition of the Archives focuses on the senses and human interaction: from soft touch to body heat.

Droog’s International debut in Milan was an adventure. Two individuals who hardly knew each other, Renny Ramakers and Gijs Bakker, decided to join forces in February 1993 and make a statement during the Salone del Mobile in Milan with a selection of works by young Dutch designers. They had noticed a fresh trend in Dutch design, in the use of every day, reused materials and objects, combined with a down-to-earth mentality. The designs were simple yet humoristic — literally ‘dry’, ‘Droog’ in Dutch.

Ramakers and Bakker had no plan and no expectations whatsoever. All they knew was that they were presenting a strong narrative and fresh designs. But they were not sure how their humble show, with work by totally unknown designers — the term ‘Dutch Design’ was non-existent at the time — would be received in ‘High Style Design’ capital in Milan. To their surprise, Droog became the talk of the town. Now that the show had turned out to be an instant success, Ramakers and Bakker felt they should continue, and gradually Droog became an international movement, which put Dutch Design firmly on the map.

Droog became a label for a collection of products, carefully curated by Bakkaer and Ramakers. The selection process was primarily based on look & feel and content. They never took questions like “Will it sell?” or “Can it be produced industrially?” into their considerations. While a considerable number of products from the Droog collection reached shops, as many remained only prototypes and concepts. For Bakker and Ramakers, that made no difference at all. Both found their way to international museums, especially MoMA New York and Centraal Museum in Utrecht.

The 1993 Droog presentation showed individual objects, each with its own strong narrative. In due course, the presentations in Milan would become more thematic in nature. Droog addressed all kinds of topics, from human interaction, high-tech materials and downloadable design to overproduction and climate change. Over the years, Droog collaborated with more than 200 designers inside and outside the Netherlands and was invited for exhibitions and projects all over the world, from India to Senegal, and from China to New Zealand.

For a long time, Droog presented itself everywhere in the world but was rarely visible in its hometown Amsterdam. This changed in 2024 when Droog moved into a historical building on the Staalstraat, dating from 1641. It used to be the centre of the flourishing textile industry, housing the officials of the Amsterdam Drapers’ Guild. Rembrandt painted his masterpiece De Staalmeesters especially for their boarding room. Droog commissioned contemporary artist Berend Strik to reinterpret Rembrandt’s famous painting, and his version has been installed on the original spot. The new location was intended as a hub from which the Droog mentality could be disseminated through exhibitions, publications, social events, and educational activities.

Exhibition: BODY HEAT

In the moments of love, motion, desire and intense emotion what ignites your body’s warmth?
Curated by Yev Kravt

The interplay between the corporeal and the climatic, between motion and emotion, defines our experience of body heat. Anger, love, desire, fear, passion, stress and shame compose the symphony of our thermal existence, giving rise to a bodily response – in our blood, our skin, our hearts or our tears. The BODY HEAT exhibition showcases works by 11 artists and designers, exploring the myriad ways our temperatures rise, regulate and react to the dynamics of a shifting environment and will be on show from 2 September until 27 October 2024. In a world that privileges reason and rationality, our bodies are sensuous and intuitive. We respond to beats, vibrations and other bodies: we sweat, we dance, we cry, we laugh.  

Constraint Iterations 3, 2020 © Mike Pelletier

BODY HEAT features a selection of ‘thermal attractions’ to accompany visitors’ contemplations. Through photography, sculpture, installations, and multimedia works, the artists and designers examine the visceral and emotional aspects of body heat: they delve into physiological responses, the invisible forces that drive us, and the external expressions of our inner warmth. The exhibition presents body heat as more than just a biological phenomenon, but a powerful metaphor for connection, emotion, and identity. 

Can you feel it?/ Touching you/ Don’t you feel it? – asks Quincy Jones in his 1974 track Body Heat: a musical manifestation of human connection and passion.

In this exhibition, Dutch designer Bart Hess presents his famous Grotto of veiny latex skin-like stalactites and stalagmites, reflecting on intersections of the material and the spiritual. Three towering pillars, each five metres high, hang like skin – motionless yet alive. Canadian artist Mike Pelletier animates humanoid forms with digital motion, creating bodies that exist only in the virtual realm, whilst Pleun van Dijk explores the climactic heat where technology and the body converge in our most intimate, sensual dreams and shapes. Elsewhere, Aukje Dekker’s Life is a Ride translates a mind map into a performance by synchronised swimmers, exploring our deep connection with our inner selves – and investigating the intricate mechanics of collaboration with others. 

More than a visual experience alone, this exhibition is an exploration of the essence of human connection. It invites fresh perspectives on what constitutes a unit of passion, a heartbeat, a moment of fervour. As you journey through BODY HEAT, you may come to see how warmth defines our shared humanity. French photographer Smith utilises thermo technology to highlight how our bodies radiate heat, crafting visual representations of our thermal presence that transcend physical and social distinctions. The thermal camera captures a shared biological warmth, a universal trait that connects all humans – regardless of gender, sexuality, class, race or religion. 

With Andreas Kalli (CYP), Anouk Kruithof (NLD), Armen Ter-Mkrtchyan (ARM), Aukje Dekker (NLD), Bart Hess (NLD), Droog (NLD), Lucy McRae (USA), Mike Pelletier (CAN), Pleun van Dijk (NLD), SMITH (FRA) and Yi-Fei Chen (TWN).

The exhibition BODY HEAT was on show at the North Sea Jazz Festival 2024 in Rotterdam. 

As seen in the press:

“Zweetplekken en latex stalactieten: expositie Body Heat maakt lichaamswarmte zichtbaar en voelbaar, —

Het Parool

“The exhibition invites visitors to engage with these intimate expressions of warmth, presenting body heat as a biological and emotional phenomenon, —

Design Boom

“Dansen, zweten, lachen en seksen op expositie ‘Body Heat’, —

Design Digger 

“In een wereld die de rede en rationaliteit verheerlijkt, zijn onze lichamen sensueel en intuïtief, —

Fotografie

Extended exhibition: ME/YOU, US/THEM

On show from 12 April 2024 until 26 July 2024 @droog

‘How to live together’ is a fundamental question of our human existence. Today we live in a reality more closely intertwined than ever, yet becoming more and more deeply divided. Not just because of the multitude of identities crowding our world, based on country, region, tribe, religion, culture, social class, or skin colour: not just because of ‘Us and Them’. Also because of ‘Me and You’: because we live in a world where people as individuals are increasingly unable to get along, from fighting their next-door neighbours to opposing anyone with a different opinion or background to the growing fear of strangers – of anyone who is other.

In this world, characterised by an unprecedented level of global connectivity, governments are reinforcing borders and building new walls and fences, while social and economic inequalities persist and grow. The exhibition ‘ME/YOU, US/THEM’ presents the work of artists, designers, and architects who explore the intricate knots of identity, the multitude of coexisting identities, the concepts of ‘me’ and ‘you’, ‘us’ and ‘them’, and how we do, or do not, get along.

The exhibition examines the issue of ‘how to live together’ on a scale varying from the border politics of nation-states to the interactions of individuals. By valuing and embracing diversity, societies can unlock their potential for innovation, creativity, and social progress. Ultimately, it all starts with our willingness, or unwillingness, to live together in a world full of contradictions.

Truly living together involves recognizing that diversity is not merely to be tolerated, but to be celebrated.

Twenty international artists, designers and architects explore the notion of ME/YOU, US/THEM on various scales: from national border politics to migratory patterns in the natural world, and daily interactions between individuals. Danae Stratou’s installation ‘Cut 7’ documents the lives of people residing in regions marked by dividing lines, such as the Green Line in Cyprus and the border between Mexico and the USA. Shilpa Gupta’s flag made out of taped words reminds us that the sky has no borders, as does Desiree Dolron’s photographic tracking of the Monarch butterfly’s flight routes. Efrat Zehavi is slowly and surely building a body of work portraying a variety of individuals, sculpting their heads in clay while having a conversation with them.

Artworks by: Ariane Loze (BEL), Aukje Dekker & Sexyland (NLD), CATPC (DRC), Danae Stratou (GRC), Desirée Dolron (NLD), Edith Dekyndt (BEL), Efrat Zehavi (NLD), Erik Kessels & Droog Design with Hans van der Meer and Helmut Smits (NLD), Francis Alÿs (BEL/MEX), Garry Davis (USA), Heather Dewey-Hagborg (USA), JR (FRA), Marije Vogelzang (NLD), Martin Creed (GBR), Rael San Fratello architects (USA), Shilpa Gupta (IND), Sunny Dolat & The Nest Collective (KEN), Tania El Khoury (LBN), Theo Deutinger (AUT).

Exhibition Claudy Jongstra X See All This

Claudy Jongstra exclusively opens her archive for an exhibition in collaboration with art magazine See All This. Jongstra’s works go back two decades and offer a good overview of the artist’s extensive oeuvre. With samples and artworks made for various exhibitions around the world, this initiative is the way to get your hands on a unique artwork.

For one time only, leading up to International Women’s Day 2023, artist Claudy Jongstra will open her archive for a unique and festive exhibition. This exhibition will co-facilitate LOADS, the new extension of Studio Claudy Jongstra: an indispensable and dynamic place for educational and agricultural projects that encourage biodiversity and revive historical dye plants and craftsmanship.

About Claudy Jongstra

Claudy Jongstra creates monumental, tactile installations in shimmering colours. All materials used for her fabrics are locally sourced: the wool comes from Jongstra’s flock of Drentse heath sheep and the natural dyes come from the dye plants growing in the botanical garden surrounding the farm in the Frisian village of Húns. In her creative process, she reverts to centuries-old colour recipes and techniques. Her work is featured in the collections of museums such as the MoMA in New York, the V&A Museum in London and the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam.

Exhibition Olphaert den Otter: Reality Check

Reality Check is a solo exhibition by visual artist Olphaert den Otter (Poortugaal, 1955). The exhibition features 28 paintings in egg tempera on paper and canvas/panel, from the series World Stress Painting, Home Made, and Postcode. Most of these have never been shown before. They form a bridge between classical landscape painting and contemporary subject matter. This exhibition shows how beauty and engagement can reinforce each other.

Olphaert den Otter’s paintings are based on reality: a report or a photo in the newspaper, a spot in the woods, the meagre possessions of an unhoused person. Yet the works are not realistic. At will, Den Otter omits or adds details from the image. For instance, he consistently leaves out all the people: “There is no story. There is image.”

olphaert-den-otter-reality-check

ABOUT OLPHAERT DEN OTTER 

Olphaert den Otter (born 1955, Poortugaal) studied at the Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam. Den Otter’s career spans over 40 years as a visual artist, a painter, animator, and, in the past, teacher at various academies. His work is included in various museum collections including the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Centraal Museum Utrecht, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam and Kunstmuseum Den Haag, Museum Belvédère Heerenveen. Den Otter participated in group exhibitions in the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, the UK, Belgium, and Australia. Besides his practice as a visual artist, he is a countertenor in the Rhetorical Quartet and lectures on cultural-philosophical themes. Olphaert den Otter lives and works in Rotterdam.


The exhibition Olphaert den Otter ­– Reality Check is on view from 10 November 2022 to 9 January 2023. 

For more info, click here

Exhibition Subject to Change Superflux

On view in the gallery@droog up until April 10th 2022.

Opening times:

mon – fri : 08:30 – 18:00

sat – sun : 11:00 – 18:00

Free entry!


Subject to Change is the first ever solo exhibition of London-based design studio Superflux. As a critically acclaimed, boundary-defying practice, Superflux confronts us with the complex and deeply interconnected nature of the challenges we face today. They invite us to remain open to a multitude of possibilities and navigate precarity with active hope. Their stories, films, objects, immersive installations and speculations craft new, optimistic, and enduring relationships with our planet, other species, technology, landscapes and each other.

Click here for more information

At MADE 2016 Droog is awarded ‘Designer do Ano’ (Designer of the Year)

From Screw to City

At the 4th Mercado Arte Design (MADE) in São Paulo (Brazil), Droog presents ‘From Screw to City’, showcasing that Droog explores for more than 23 years all dimensions of human life – from the smallest detail to the bigger picture – from screw to city!

At MADE 2016 Droog is awarded ‘Designer do Ano’ (Designer of the Year)

Mercado Arte Design (MADE) in São Paulo (Brazil)

Opening hours: Tuesday – Friday 13h – 21h
Saturday 12h – 21h
Sunday 12h – 20h

Location: Jockey Club de São Paulo – Av. Lineu de Paula Machado, 1.173 (vallet no numero 1.263) – Cidade Jardim, São Paulo, Brazil

Tuesday to Thursday
Free entrance

Friday to Sunday: R$ 20

For the elderly and students: R$ 10

Low-tech Factory at Hôtel Droog

What at first glance appears to be a rocking chair, turns out to be a knitting machine. And while you sit and rock on the chair, a knitted hat is created. As you do a little dance on a platform, an expandable carrying bag is made. Another spectacular machine makes popcorn—a single kernel at a time.

Low-Tech Factory is a project by ECAL/Ecole cantonale d’art de Lausanne, Switzerland. In a workshop led by Chris Kabel and Thomas Kral, students from Bachelor in Industrial Design and Master in Product Design created a series of simple but sophisticated machines that not only create an experience, but actually produce finished goods—hats, mirrors, bags, toys, lamps and popcorn.

With this project, the theme of auto-production is raised. Recently we have seen countless designers make their own machines. And while it often seems the machine becomes more important than the result, in this case, the design of the machine and its resulting product are in balance.

The exhibition presents six machines with videos. At the opening on March 21st, the designers will demonstrate the machines themselves. The question—why are designers making so many machines—still remains. With this question, we will enter into a debate on March 21st with Alexis Georgacopoulos, director of ECAL, Chris Kabel, Joanna van der Zanden and Joris Laarman. The evening will be moderated by Tracy Metz.

Opening exhibition and debate

Why are so many young designers making machines these days?
Where: Hôtel Droog
When: 21st of March
Start debate: 19.00
Opening exhibition: 20.00 – 22.00
RSVP click HERE

Special Low-Tech Dinner
Where: café and tearoom (upstairs at Hôtel Droog)
When: 27th of March
Time: 18.00 – 22.00
Price 3 course menu: 40euro (including a glass of cava – cocktail)
RSVP click HERE
(limited capacity)

Exhibition from March 21st till April 21st

Credits: Low-Tech Factory – Rocking-Knit

Photographer: ECAL/Nicolas Genta