Domas Anne van Wijk

science & technology, installation, Sound, Ecology, Conceptual

''The process is the message and the message is the process''

'Movement is Trouble' (2019) Factor 44, Antwerp (BE) - Movement is Trouble exhibition that is the result of a two-week residency in Factoroor 44 Antwerp. In this residency I entered into a collaboration with Lin Gerritsen.
'Do an all install' (2019) - ''There is no better place than a white space.'' Do an all install was an event Organized by DE PLAYER and Hosted by Joey Ramone Gallary This evening includes an exhibition with specific moments focused on the performance of a concert. It will be an event consisting of a mix of concertants and installation works by three artists who experiment with mechanical processes to organize audio-related works. That is why we chose to work together for this event. A project like this goes very well with JOEY RAMONE's attitude towards the dynamics of art, and the presentation of mechanical performances in this space matches with DE PLAYER's search for new social and artistic interfaces for audiovisual performative art.
'Fake Newsstand' (2021) - About the work: Fake Newsstand (2021) Fake Newsstand is a work of art that Domas van Wijk developed on commission for the IJsselbiennale. The work focuses on themes such as salinization and fake news. At first glance the work resembles a traditional news kiosk, but upon closer inspection it is noticeable that the kiosk consists of a large aquarium with crystallized newspapers in it. Works of art that are subject to process changes are central to van Wijk's practice. Fake Newsstand is a work that is subject to process at several levels. During the first weeks of presenting the work, the aquarium was filled with water that was maximally saturated with salt. Due to the large amount of salt, the water has reached a maximum point of absorption, so that upon evaporation it returns to a solid form and salt crystals are formed. We see a similar process around us every year: increasingly hotter and drier summers cause groundwater to evaporate, causing salinization of the landscape, which has major consequences for both nature and agriculture. At the same time, Fake Newsstand also takes a critical look at the changing form and objectivity of news. Due to the advent of the internet and a distrust of the media, resulting in conspiracy theories, fact and fiction are increasingly mixed. The crystallization of newspapers brings the newspaper medium to a standstill; culture (re)conquered by nature. The work offers a poetic and layered perspective on both the impact of climate change and the transformation process of news. As with several of van Wijk's works, he accurately merges two diverse subjects, transition processes of news and climate, by using another process, namely salinization. It is no surprise that the quote “The medium is the message [and the message is the medium]” (Marshall McLuhan, 1967) has similarities with the work of Domas van Wijk. 
'Waste of Time' (2018) – Museum Het Valkhof Nijmegen - Compared to these sound-producing, kinetic works, the Leaving Surfaces series seems at first glance quite classically sculptural and, well, quiet. Van Wijk created the first parts of this series in 2015 during his studies at ArtEZ in Arnhem. He 'harvests' pieces of graffiti from public places in Arnhem where water damage has loosened the many layers of spray paint from the stone walls, and then carefully sands them to bring out the many colorful layers. During the academy's open days, he presents the pieces in display cases as if they were archaeological or geological objects. For the exhibition Wasted Time in Museum Het Valkhof, Van Wijk is looking for new pieces of graffiti in the area surrounding the museum itself, the city of Nijmegen. This time he does not have to 'fake' the museum context; the antique ceramics that surround the graffiti pieces immediately evoke all kinds of historical scenarios in which the pieces could have originated. As with the kinetic installations, the artist for Leaving Surfaces combines well-known things - in this case the street art that is part of our daily urban environment and the archaeological museum with its typical ways of exhibiting - to create highly suggestive alternative interpretations of these well-known to create things. Although the results of Van Wijk's adaptation of the street art pieces appear very aesthetic, the artist's creative act in this case is also clearly a destructive gesture. When you consider that the visual language of graffiti often consists of signatures and tags, it is hard to imagine a more violent intervention in the legacy of this art form than reducing it to an abstract mass of color. Similar to how previous installations poke fun at Van Wijk's position as the 'genius' artist/creator, Leaving Surfaces explores the notion of authorship and ownership even further. This becomes even clearer by an email from a local graffiti artist with whom Van Wijk was in contact during his preparations; the email is quoted as part of the work in the exhibition: “[For me] Graffiti is a subject/art that you have to taste, savor in the sense of adopting it into your life and continuing to experience it, that means: every day of working on it and the proof of 'breathing'. Even for me as a person/artist, after almost 14 years (as a writer), I still continue to discover new layers and forms, so a conversation and/or dialogue with you feels like I have to give you my investment [...] ”. This is an interesting example of how a public art form like graffiti can still raise questions about cultural appropriation, how some may believe that Van Wijk is appropriating a public work of art that is not his. And to make matters worse, Van Wijk also shows the pieces of street art for the Weggegooide Tijd exhibition within the walls of the temple of cultural appropriation: the archaeological museum. Van Wijk approaches the idea of ​​ownership and authorship in an ambivalent manner: although the fronts of the graffiti pieces are polished smooth, their backs remain rough, as they once came off the wall at their original location. The many layers of paint echo the work of the many street artists who have sprayed their own work over and over again. As in his kinetic installations, Van Wijk as an artist is simultaneously present and absent. In the installation, the pieces from Leaving Surfaces are placed in a classic museum display case together with small shards of colored Roman glass, which look strikingly similar to the polished graffiti. The 2000-year-old fragments that are normally the center of attention in the museum now lie casually along the edges of the display case.
'Leaving Surfaces' (2015-2020) - Elimination of the carrier. Graffiti cares little about architecture. It forgets the architecture. Graffiti spills over from one building to another, from one facade to the next. A wall is equivalent to a door, a window or a sidewalk. Graffiti interlocks, overlaps and pukes on each other. It respects no boundaries. As a result, she takes a position in which the support worker is abolished as a framework. Graffiti eliminates the wearer. The layering of graffiti is now part of history. And anyone who would remove this layering would not only touch that surface. In the elimination of the wearer, a new form of beauty can come to light. One that has always been there, but only arrives when their time is up. Like poetry written in the approaching past tense. For the Leaving Surfaces Series I 'harvested' pieces of graffiti from public places. Using a putty knife, I removed the spray paint placards from their stone support and then sanded them down to reveal the many colorful layers that had built up over the years.
'Salt crystals on Trouw (Dutch) newspaper' (2020) - For 'the IJssel-bienalle 2021' I'm researching the behavior of salt in water exposed to increasing levels of evaporation. Crystals when emerge the liquid salt, due to evaporation and temperature change, is forced back in to a solid state. This process, although heavily exaggerate in my work, reflects the effects of climate change on our landscape. In my research, I am not only interested in the objective physical effects, but also on the subjective effects that information and disinformation have on the process of Salinization.
(Left) *22/12/1960 † 12/08/1988 (Right) *24/09/1976 †12/12/2003, (2018) (DE) - *24/09/1976 †12/12/2003. Like a sculptural assemblage, the work is composed of various parts. Including a guitar, a television screen, an amplifier, and two stacked six-packs of Coca-Cola bottles with a VCR on top. If you look longer, you will see that there are several connections to be made and it becomes clear that the individual elements are closely linked. The work balances between a device that intangibly keeps itself going and a contemporary version of an invention that you might encounter in Raymond Roussel's literary novel Locus Solus. The work is set in motion by electricity and creates before our eyes a story in the form of a still life in which the parts align themselves with each other and become interdependent. A videoJ ribbon runs through the recorder where it does not play safely within its cassette, but rather extends for meters through the space. After which it rotates along the neck of an upright, balanced guitar. In this setup, the magnetic data on the videotape produces two effects: the display – although sometimes distorted – of the famous escape scene from Free Willy, and the vibration of the guitar strings. This fills the room with a low buzzing sound. Thus, the figurative and literal release of Free Willy creates its own ominous soundtrack. ? ?As for Free Willy J or Keiko the orca J: freedom was never really within the realm of possibility for him. It may sound existential, but by growing up as an (originally) wild animal in a glass tank, you ultimately develop a cultivated and artificial life in captivity. Under pressure from the media, his forced deportation into the open sea led to his premature death in 2003. Besides others, such as the guitar virtuosos Jimi Hendrix, Brian Jones and Kurt Cobain, Keiko the orca, at 27 years old, belongs to 'The greatest myth of rock and roll': 'The Club of 27'. Viewed from a distance, the installation can evoke a feeling of abandonment. An apparently independently functioning work of art in the form of a closed circuit that maintains itself without human interference. As if in some kind of archeology of modern media, we are left behind in a landscape full of the remains of humanity. In which objects have complete control over their own functioning within the system of things. *22/12/1960 † 12/08/1988 (2018). In this work you immediately notice two blowing, high-tech fans that make a video ribbon float in the air. With a different aesthetic, but a similar working mechanism, the ribbon gracefully dances around while simultaneously being processed by a VCR. The video recorder is connected to a flat screen that lies on its back a little further in the room. From headphones connected to the monitor, the distorted soundtrack 'So-far-so-real' from the film 'Downtown-81, (1980)' sounds. Lyrics: ? ?''FairyCtales can come true. Some time it might happen to you[...]. Anyway, the story you are about to see isn't true C but it isn't false, either Any resemblance between the characters and events depicted here and reality is purely magical''. ? ?In Downtown 81, the unknown and homeless JeanJMichel Basquiat plays the leading role of the eponymous Jean: a poor painter from New York who magically becomes rich. It was because of this film that Basquiat had access to paint and canvas for the first time. Materials that the former graffiti artist never had money for before. The frescoes made for the film are therefore seen as his earliest work. So you could say that Downtown 81 and Free Willy are both fictional fairy tales that have left the screen and entered reality.
'Compilation' - compilation over the years, from 2017 to 2021
'Desert rose' – (8211) ;, Kunstenlab Deventer (2021) - Domas van Wijk creates a sound installation in which various record players and subwoofers are connected, each part driven by the sound of the other. After all, sound waves are movements of air. This fact can sometimes literally be felt: when loud music is playing, you can feel the bass on your skin as you stand in front of the speaker. In this installation the artist uses the sound waves from one record player to drive the other. Just as fans can keep each other running, the record players in this installation continuously breathe new life into each other. Van Wijk chose a specific sound for his sound installation: the first tone of Stanley Cubrick's film '2001: Space Oddesy.' It contains the piece 'Atmosphères; by György Ligeti. The first minute of the piece consists of one fixed tone in which the composer wanted to express 'stillness', or 'nothingness'. This is also why Cubrick lets it be heard before his film has visually begun. It is the 'nothing' before the 'something.' The scene that then unfolds is about human evolution, and the impetus of this scene is exactly what drives Domas van Wijk's installation. It is the sound of a beginning that practically breathes life into the installation, but also carries with it the artist's substantive question: what does it mean to go from 'nothing' to 'something', to create and to be human? ?
'Requiems for a reality' –, (Prospects 2021) - "The piano doesn't kill the player, if it doesn't like the music." With this quote from Dr. Robert Ford from the television series Westworld, Domas van Wijk (1993) opens his artist statement. It could hardly be more appropriate, given the work he shows at Prospects: a player piano that plays the autopsy reports of shot musicians. The perforated sheet music driving the keys is based on the gunshot wounds in the body diagrams of Christopher Wallace aka 'The Notorious BIG' and Tupac Amaru Shakur. For conspiracy theorists, the murder of both rappers still gives rise to theories that must prove that their deaths were staged. For example, the posthumously released records of Tupac and his 3D appearance during a hologram concert give rise to claims that he is still alive and making music. This mystery is in line with the ghostly effect that Van Wijk attributes to player pianos. “As if the ghosts of both musicians are still literally wandering the earth, their last speculative moments are turned into what they wanted to be remembered for: music.” This theme touches on the fascination that Van Wijk seeks in all his work: “the shadowy and ever-blurring dividing line between man and machine, real and fake, authenticity and counterfeit, life and death.” He calls himself a mediator or trickster who makes new connections between contrasting world, existing objects and machines. . “Although my authority is indirectly present in the choice and bringing together of the different elements, they seem to have a life of their own. I use this effect in my art to suggest a certain animation of dead matter – or animism.”

A slippery slope - Garage Rotterdam

Date:
Location: Garage Rotterdam
In association with: garage Rotterdam, youri appelo

Is it possible to keep a grip on a world in which the boundaries between past and future, truth and falsehood, the real and the unreal are becoming increasingly diluted? In our polarized and hyper-capitalist society, there seems to be an agenda behind everything. Ingrained ways of thinking, however, find themselves on a 'slippery slope', a proverbial slippery slope, where it seems to inevitably slide into a sea of ​​complexity.

https://catalogue.garagerotterdam.nl/nl/catalogi/49/

Fake Newsstand

Date:
Location: Brummen
In association with: IJsselbiënnale, Alphons ter Avest, Mondriaan-fonds

meester/gezel traject van IJsselbiënnale

Date:
Location: Deventer, Brummen, Arnhem, Rotterdam
In association with: IJsselbiënnale, Alphons ter Avest, Mondriaan-fonds

After the first successful edition in 2017, the second edition of the IJssel Biennale will take place in the summer of 2020. The IJssel Biennale pays tribute to the river IJssel with a route of 30 monumental works of art by artists from home and abroad between Doesburg and Kampen. The works of art are located in special locations in the Hanseatic cities and in the landscape, such as floodplains, quays and locks, brick factories and country estates. Where you can see, smell and taste the IJssel. the art w

https://ijsselbiennale.nl/

Publicatie IJsselbiënnale 2021

Location: brummen
In association with: IJsselbiënnale, Alphons ter Avest, Mondriaan-fonds
This artist has no awards yet.