project

Art and Play: Unconventional Self

Art & Play

Have you ever wondered what it is like to be a chair? Now is your chance to find out!By combining their expertise in telepresence and furniture robotics the artists triedto answer this question in this brand new technological experience. By using foundobjects and motors, microcontrollers and VR glasses, it is now possible to see andmove through the world as a chair.

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Werner van der Zwan is a Dutch artist living and working in Rotterdam. In his artistic practice he investigates how a sense of life can be created in the non-living. By animating found objects and giving them a lifeworld he tries to question the dichotomy between subject and object. He does this by morphing the objects into moving bodies using electromotors. In performances and installation stray objects are given a last breath, expressing their distinct character.

Charl Linssen is particularly interested in computer simulation of dynamical processes, which unfold over time. The brain is such a dynamical system, and is moreover involved in a continuous feedback with its environment, mediated by the body through perception and action. In his spare time, Charl uses electronics and robotics to build objects that exhibit a similar kind of responsiveness to their environment. These objects have a quality of “animatedness”, or being endowed with a spirit, in the sense that they are not just objects like any other, but come to life once the circuit is powered on.