Our image of the human body is constantly changing. Again and again historical developments and technological breakthroughs provide a new perspective on our bodies. For the first time, in the year 1543 the anatomist Andreas Vesalius draws realistic blood vessels and makes the first accurate illustration of the human cortex. In this way Vesalius objectified the human body, handing it over to scientific research. This had a major impact on the existing image of man.
Through the exhibition Exotropy / Beyond Humanity the art collective IMG_SRC invites you to form a vision of the synthesis between man and technology. What if technology literaly penetrates the human body, and how does this influence our understanding of the natural body? And what is the meaning of this natural body while it is a product of former technological developments? Is there such a thing as a natural body if you desire a truly original and authentic body? Must we limit the stretching, punching and improving of the human body? In the resulting biopolitics it is no longer about what we can do - over time we can do the unthinkable - but what we want to do.
The IMG_SRC invited nine artists who explore and visualise the borders between technological possibilities and social acceptance. From 10 Februari to 4 March Jalila Essaidi, Floris Kaayk, Kaisu Koski, Vena Naskrecka, Daan Paans, Thijs Wieman and I - Introspection II - show our work in the exhibition 'Exotropy / Beyond Humanity. During the exhibition, there are artists' talks moderated by Friso Wiersum and lectures with professors Petran Kockelkoren and Robert Zwijnenberg on 15 and 22 Februari. The exhibition is closed by a dance performance by HEAD (Lenneke Bisschop/ Martijn Verhallen) at 4 March. Everything takes place in Da§pectrum, homebase of IMG_SRC at the Montalbaendreef in Utrecht. Download the flyer here (NL).

From 28 September until 25 November my project Introspection will be shown at the UvA ErfgoedLab, the Heritage Lab of the University of Amsterdam situated between the Allard Pierson Museum and the Special Collections. The show Cultureel Virtueel at UvA ErfgoedLab runs parallel with The Discovery Of Man, an exhibition on the history of anatomy at the Special Collections exhibition space. Museum Solutions, AB-C Media, Feddow Claassen and I will show the diverse potential of virtual cultural heritage presentation. The developments on virtual- and augmented reality are moving fast. This is why there will be two work-in-progress projects during this lab. The results will be shown at Museum Night (n8.nl) on the 5th of November. My project Introspection will be undergoing its next development phase during this period.

The opening of the exhibition Vision Machines took place at 8 September at 18h00 at the MX7 Gallery in Antwerp. The exhibition will run until October 22.
Vision Machines is all about tools that force people to look at art. In my current research on using robots to look at art, I question how people look at art. Is it possible to force someone to really see a work of art? Must a viewer be open to a subject to be critical and enjoy a painting? Such questions arise from the current debate on whether a work of art can only be meaningful for people who want to delve into it.
The artworks I made for MX7 influence the space located between the observer and the art object. The process of looking at art, and perception itself, are questioned through a series of objects and photo documentation. They reveal the viewer’s own way of seeing and provide an alternative gateway to the viewing process. For pictures see my work page.

The Dutch magazine KM (kunstenaarsmateriaal.nl) published an article about my work. There is a photograph of the work Introspection on the cover. The theme of issue 78 is the relationship between Science and Art. The magazine has a good article from Professor Rob Zwijnenberg about Bio Art and an interview with Piem Wirtz of V2_Lab about Wearable Technology in which the project Media Vintage is mentioned (to which I also contributed). A pdf of my interview by Monika Auch can be dowloaded here.

Next Sunday 26 and Monday June 27 I will participate in Mars der Beschaving, the March of Civilization. We march from Rotterdam to The Hague to show that we are supporting our civilization. We ask all Dutch people to join us.
It is from our engagement with society as a whole that we take action. The policy of this government affects many people and breaks down what we so desperately need: beauty, innovation, care, trust, openness and tolerance.
Under this government we are heading towards a society where there is no room for curiosity and where everything is about numbers. Where our Dutch identity becomes a straightjacket instead of a motley of opinions, beliefs and expressions, that has charactarised our culture for so long. We will meet a "survival of the fittest" society, where difference is seen as weakness, where money wins of beauty and power of care. An uncivilized society in our eyes.
We ask the government to stop using the crisis as an alibi for mismanagement, to push her contempt for facts on the side, to show statesmanship and actually take responsibility for future generations.
We want to live in a country which has investments in the future. We want to live in a country that is not only harvested but also sown. A civilization with no future is a future without civilization. For this we will march. From Rotterdam to The Hague and beyond.

For the first time I've presented at a PechaKucha Night in Amsterdam at Trouw this Wednesday 22 june and it was surprisingly inspiring. PechaKucha is a crossbreed between an elevator pitch and a slide show and has spread to about 420 cities around the world. Drawing its name from the Japanese term for the sound of conversation ("chit chat"), it rests on a presentation format that is based on a simple idea: 20 images x 20 seconds. It's a format that makes presentations compact, and keeps things moving at a rapid pace. The organisation in Amsterdam, the urban design agency Golfstromen, selected about twelve people to share their latest work, ideas and inspiration.

After the great success at the Nutshuis The Hague in 2010 the exhibition Pretty Smart Textiles will now start travelling the world. First stop will be the event Future Textiles at TEKO Knowledge Center for Smart Textiles, Denmark. I have completed the design process. Our team is working hard in Maakhaven to produce the components for the show.

From April, an artist-in-residency will start at Scheltema Complex in Leiden to support my artistic research on the self-image in contemporary media technologies. The end result of the artist-in-residency is an exhibition in October in which several interactive installations will be displayed. On this day Resi van der Ploeg, director at Scheltema, will officially introduce my residency. She will present a short retrospection of my previous work and give a preview of the coming project Automated Spectators. In addition the work Introspection will be demonstrated.

At Give Me A Brain! curated by Prof. Patricia Pisters, thursday program 2 of the Studium Generale Festival, the Gerrit Rietveld Academie building will be turned into a large brain space. Different “chambers” will represent different areas of the brain in which artists, filmmakers, neuroscientists, philosophers and a mentalist present work in relation to the specific area of the brain that it addresses. I will present the first demo of Introspection, a self-portrait of invisible internal processes. Different techniques from neuroscientific research will register the artistic process in my brain, which ultimately will result in a cinematographic imagery projected on a 3D printed copy of my head. This is a project realized in cooperation with Dr. Sarah de Rijcke and the TU Delft. Come and join us on a ride through our mental scapes and screens in “brainy” lectures, viewings, performances, installations, workshops and discussions!

In the next months about 10 Media Technology students of Hogeschool Leiden, University of Applied Sciences, are researching and upgrading the software and hardware for the project Public Window, the online teleoperation network for art. Their developments can be followed at the blogs swing.nderuijter.nl and artofcoding.nl (dutch).

At the event on Sunday January 16 in Scheltema Complex questions are posed to the audience like: How do people recognize faces? And how do computers see faces? Up until what point is a face still recognizable? The day was cunningly presented by magician/philosopher Tilman Andris who demonstrated how our eye movement can be tricked, Resi van der Ploeg did a short workshop on the uniqueness of a face, professor Theo Gevers demonstrated his software eMotion which recognizes human emotions and the artist Stijn Belle presented his new project DNA-Immunity. I showed my first experiments on Gaze, an installation that visualizes the gaze of the spectator on the artwork by means of light and eye tracking technology.

On December 10 the artistic platform publicwindow.net will be launched. The Public Window Foundation, managed by Jacqueline Petit, Hans Dunlop and me, aims to promote interactive art in public spaces. Artists get the opportunity to develop interactive work for the audience on the street and the internet user at a distance. The viewer can control the works through the use of touch-screens fitted to the window. The occasional passer-by can change form, movement and / or lighting of the works. For this pilot in Leiden the artists Thomas Wildner and Guido Winkler developed interactive works in two shop windows. These first two windows Public Window 001 and Public Window 002 are located at Aalmarkt 12 and Stille Rijn 9 in Leiden and will be linked through an online network. This will make them ready to be influenced and changed by the audience in front of the window and by the internet user from any other location. Between 17.00 and 19.00 you can meet the artists and we will tell you more about the project while you enjoy some snacks and drinks.

The installations Reconstruction Lab and Antagonist-Protagonist from Sgraffito in 3D are part of the group exhibition Certified Copy at Verbeke Foundation. The assembly line is provided by Refunc. Certified Copy, open to the public from November 20, 2010 to April 10, 2011 unites the works of over twenty international contemporary artists who are concerned with the question of the reproduction of living and lifeless materials. More information on the exhibition can be found on the website of Certified Copy.

At Key Of Life festival the installation ObserverObject will be part of Brainscapes, a group exhibition at the Scheltema Complex in Leiden. The installation will be shown next to work by Susan Aldworth, Andrew Carnie, Stijn Belle and Pantelis Makkas. Key Of Life is a annual Art/Science festival in Leiden. This year's theme is the Body & the Brain.

17 October will be the first of four Sundays at Scheltema Complex with installations, lectures, workshops, poetry and musical acts around the theme Self Image. In each of these coming Sundays I will present the progress in my artistic research. This sunday I will present my latest work ObserverObject made in collaboration with V2_. Other presentations: 16 Jan 2011 / 17 Apr 2011 / 16 Oct 2011. For more information check the Scheltema website (dutch) or email .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

Last Friday 1 October I participated in Makers Festival and presented ObserverObject an electronic self-portrait developed during my residency at V2_, which enables the spectator to look through the eyes of the artist/artwork at himself. Makers Festival is a national festival where the newest developments in the field of making are shown and the best results of collaboration between the craft makers, designers, architects, artists. One could witness how crafts fit in today's world and how new products and forms of cooperation are possible. Link (Dutch)

I have been invited to present Sgraffito in 3D at The Best In Heritage conference in Dubrovnik, Croatia. This conference is the world's only survey of the best museum, heritage and conservation projects. My traveling companion will be Ewald Vanvugt who will present his recent book Roofgoed, on the fictional European Museum Of Overseas Stolen Treasures. More information about the programme is to be found on The Best In Heritage website.

On Thursday the 2nd of September we'll be holding the Test_Lab in Rotterdam for everybody who couldn't make it to ISEA in Dortmund this week. You'll be able to see and try out the projects made in the fields of augmented reality, wearable technology, and ecology at V2_Lab by myself, Anouk Wipprecht, Mark Shepard and Ivan Henriques. And if that isn't enough, there will be free cocktails for all. The evening starts at 20:00 and it's free entrance.
http://www.v2.nl/events/test_lab-summer-sessions-2010

During the summer I've made a silicone copy of my head which has been augmented with touch- and pressure sensors and lights were placed underneath the soft plastic skin. Touching the head manipulates a portrait of the person holding the head on a screen behind the artwork. The installation lets you make a self portrait by touching and pushing on the skin of the head. You watch yourself through the gaze of the artwork. Today I presented the first prototype sketch of the project made during the V2_ SummerSessions 2010 at ISEA Festival in a Test_Lab together with Anouk Wipprecht, Mark Shepard and Ivan Henriques and the wonderful folk from V2_ Lab. The projects were demonstrated in action and tried out by the audience.

This summer I will be doing an artist in residency at V2_ in Rotterdam where I will make a 3D self portrait of my head which will be merged with a camera, motors and sensors. People using the installation will be able to manipulate my head as an inter-face in order to see themselves through the eyes of the artist.
http://www.v2.nl/lab/projects/observerobject

For Berlin Fashion Week 2010 Melissa Coleman and I were invited to teach a Masterclass Electronics For Fashion. The first day participants could make a garment move up and down. The second day they integrated light into clothing. Results of the masterclass were presented by Van Raveschot, who wore clothing designed by Eppo Dekker.

During the month of May I worked on the design and production of the exhibition Pretty Smart Textiles held at Nutshuis in The Hague. This exhibition, which was curated by Melissa Coleman and Dorith Sjardijn, explores the latest innovations today in electronic textiles created by Dutch artists and designers. Work was exhibited by Daan Roosegaarde, Maartje Dijkstra, Meg Grant, Nicky Assmann, Dorith Sjardijn, Melissa Coleman, Heike Sperber, Marina Venendaal, Karina van Heck, Florian Kräutli, Aduen Darriba, Anouk Wipprecht, Charlotte ‘t Hart, Evelyn Lebis, Paula Kassenaar, Paula Segura Meccia, Mark Kwikkers and Anja Hertenberger. During the opening there was a talk by Piem Wirtz of V2_ and the official opening was done by Syuzi Pakhchyan of Fashioning Technlogy.The exhibition was featured on Wired.com, Fashioning Technlogy, Design.nl, Ecouterre and Talk2myshirt. Pictures of all the works can be found on prettysmarttextiles.com.

The last few weeks I have been designing and organising the exhibition State of the AR in cooperation with the AR+RFID Lab. ‘State of the AR’ is a retrospective exhibition of art and design that have been developed over the past three years in collaboration with the AR+RFID Lab at the KABK. The KABK’s AR+RFID Lab specializes in researching the usability of new visualization techniques for art and design. The Lab collaborates closely with the Bio-Robotics Lab of the TU-Delft. For the many projects of the AR+RFID Lab that have been established with the collaboration of artists and designers please visit http://www.arlab.nl/projects.html. A special component of the exhibition ‘State of the AR’ is the ‘Augmented Exhibition’ which can only be viewed with a special headset. For the operation of the headset an expert will be present each day from 16.00 to 18.00. At other times it is possible to watch along with an automated visitor. Visitors can also evoke 3D images on a monitor themselves, using AR-books. The long tradition of technical visualization methods that preceded AR can be seen at the ‘Laterna Magica’ formation, where pieces from the Magic Lantern Museum in Scheveningen are exhibited. For more details download the invitation and the programme.

The AR+RFID Lab presented the Reconstruction Lab installation, part of Sgraffito in 3D, in an item of RTL4 EditieNL about Augmented Reality. See the video.

This summer I have been assisting my girlfriend and colleague Melissa Coleman with her artist-in-residency project at V2_Lab. Media Vintage is a series of electronic textiles that contain audio memories. It remembers a time when technology was built to last and tries to imagine how digital data storage could be visual, physical and meaningful. Alpha is a suitcase in which you can weave temporary secret messages in Morse code. Bravo is a tapestry that sings a song from long ago when your fingers read the embroidered Braille. Charlie is a trench-coat that reads fabric punchcards and tells you stories from an old man's life. The work was presented at Ars Electronica Festival in Linz and then at the Test_Lab: Summer Sessions event in Rotterdam. Watch the of the Test_Lab: Summer Sessions - video-stream on the V2_ website.

Eric Schrijver and I are teaching a weekly Web Design class at the KABK, Royal Academy of Art, Den Haag. The introductory course ‘Web Design' focuses on mastering basic skills in the development of interactive content for the web. Student information and websites [under construction] can be found at kabk-webdesign.net.

AR+RFID Lab and students of the Royal Academy of Art, supported by Martin Sjardijn and I, developed a series of interactive installations for the Sweet Summer Night festival at the Kröller-Müller Museum. A large 360 degrees rotating display was placed in the park to watch 3D-animations superimposed over the real sculptures. Rollators where enhanced with laptops, cameras and augmented reality software. While walking with a rollator the public could meet illusionary reactions to the park and its statues. See the work process and some visual material at the AR+RFID Lab site + YouTube.

During the 11th edition of the GSDI World Conference in Rotterdam Geonovum presented the first Dutch Augmented Reality Atlas to celebrate the opening of the National GeoRegistry. The AR+RFID Lab was commissioned to develop this unique atlas. Wim van Eck made the 3D content and I designed the book. A small Flash-based AR-application can be found on nationaalgeoregister.nl and some movies of the conference at the GeoReport Channel.

The KABK's AR+RFID Lab and Joachim Rotteveel exhibited the Augmented Reality applications for cultural heritage at CHI Nederland Conference 2009, the Dutch conference for Human Computer Interaction and User Experience Design on the 11th of June in Leiden. The 3D-Popup Book and Reconstruction Lab were part of the exhibition Sgraffito in 3D at the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen earlier this year.

Make a connection with the year 2030! ICTDelta, the annual congress organised by ICTRegie, was about how ICT can contribute to health, safety and prosperity in The Netherlands. Yolande Kolstee (AR+RFID Lab) and Joachim Rotteveel gave a talk and demo on innovative augmented reality applications in the cultural sector.

Test_Lab: Better Than Reality at V2_ on the 11th of december was an event on Augmented Reality featuring: CREW (Eric Joris and Vincent Jacobs), Joachim Rotteveel, Marnix de Nijs, Boris Debackere, and Jonas Hielscher. Test_Lab is a bi-monthly event at V2_ in Rotterdam which provides a platform for showcasing contemporary artistic research and development (aRt&D). I presented the augmented reality installations developed in cooperation with AR+RFiD Lab and part of the show Sgraffito in 3D in Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen until the 4th of January. More on the event is to be found in the V2_ Archive.

The AR+RFID Lab participated in the Business of Design Week '08 event in Hong Kong. Wim van Eck presented AR-interfaces he made in cooperation with Joachim Rotteveel for the exhibition Sgraffito in 3D.

Press:
www.visionunion.com/article.jsp?code=200812160054
www.relva.com.cn/thread-3735-1-1.html

The opening in Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen of the exhibition Sgraffito in 3D: Late medieval earthenware as viewed by Joachim Rotteveel on Saturday the 8th of November started the same time as the exhibitions 'Images of Erasmus' and 'From the collection Ploos van Amstel Knoef'. There were speeches by museum director Sjarel Ex, Secretary of State Frank Heemskerk the former mayor of Rotterdam Ivo Opstelten. AR+RFID Lab provided an ongoing performance with a head-mounted display in an augmented reality setting. Alexandra Gaba-van Dongen gave a lecture in the auditorium.

Veronica Publishing and Touching Media publish the world's first public magazine with markerless augmented reality technology. On Page 15 of the Dutch tv-guide TotaalTV you can find an advertisment for Sgraffito in 3D in Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen. While holding the magazine in front of a webcam a 3D-animation of an archeological pot appears on your screen and breaks into pieces. Download the software (PC only) and print the pages at the site Beyond Reality.

A special on Augmented Reality where Yolande Kolstee of the AR+RFID Lab presented a preview of the exhibition 'Sgraffito in 3D'. This event was organised by Sylvia Visser of Beyond Reality AKA Touching Media. More information on the AR Special can be found on the Picnic 2008 site.