In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida

IN-A-GADDA-DA-VIDA

IN-A-GADDA-DA-VIDA, 2021. Prospects & Concepts 2021, Art Rotterdam. Special thanks to Mondriaan Fonds.

This work was conceived during the spring of 2021, during the wait for the vaccine. My work had gotten more and more introverted, focused on the digital. I traveled with Google Earth in virtual reality, lightning quick searches revealed places where I could not yet go, my internet connection barely keeping up, revealing poorly loaded polygonal meshes, depicting mountains, forests and cities slowly materializing, re-organizing the colors blue, orange, green in a black void.

For the prospects and concepts show my wish was to convey a longing. The title In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, comes from the 1968 song by Iron Butterfly - a slurred translation of In the Garden of Eden. (The song, a monotonous beast, 17 minutes long, became an unexpected hit when radio DJ’s played it so they could go on bathroom breaks.) For me the title reinforces the impossible dream of an ideal world, and how the lust for it can become torture.

The ideal form for the work was created in the computer (available for the visitors of the show in the catalogue), with accurate and precise measurements, with simulated cloth draping over solids (not possible in the market 20 years ago). The physical object I present a mere simulation of the digital in the physical world. Mankind has been excellent in adapting to a more and more seamless translation between the digital and the real world, and I am curious of how people read this interaction, and how it is evolving sculptures.

Above: 3D-scans from the exhibition.

Below are computer renders that were part of the development of the sculpture. Note the difference in hue to the final pattern and the scenery is quite different to the final outcome. On the table is a 3D-scan of the van Nelle-factory, also visible above in some of the experimental CGI-documentation.

In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida
POLICY ID:

8c828e850f33d1a87eb6187fd622ec17327237b448a159d16b3abb3d