WITHIN WITHOUT

The artist @nickverstand examined our subconscious by light art, music and modern dance. The performance symbolizes the transformation of the self through different stadia. Let yourself be transported into a dream world of light and darkness, sound and space. 

The object was created in collaboration with several engineers for hardware, electronics and software. The aluminum structure was laser cut and later bent the curved shape by artist/engineer Daniel de Bruin. The LEDs, controllers and software we thoroughly researched, as we wanted to achieve super high speeds in order to draw very fluid light animations onto the object. The industry standard DMX protocol simply was not capable of doing this. After finding LEDs that allowed for these high control rates, we realized we had to develop our own controllers and light protocol. We collaborated with JDT Engineering to create our own 1000hz controllers, which we built into the frame of the ring. Each of these patches to the next one using gigabit ethernet. NAP Labs developed a software environment that renders the animations at 1000hz using a newly developed light protocol. It was quite challenging to combine all these high-end techniques into a single object, but I feel it makes it very unique as these animations are simply impossible to achieve using standard methods. 

Verstand joins forces with @sedrigverwoert (choreographer & dancer), @wanderwelle (music & sound design), @wes_broersen (interaction designer), @marijn.cinjee (sound design), Jasmine Karimova and Pitou (vocals). Together with Reina Trifunović, Alanna Archibald, Comfort Kondehson, Winter Wieringa and Adam Russel-Jones. 

Let's get to know Nick Verstand better, his poetics, his training and his ideas on life and form: 

As a kid I was into astronomy, science and telescopes, being fascinated by light traveling for millions of years from distant galaxies. This is my first memory of being fascinated by light. 

Years later I started DJing organizing underground electronic music events, I learned to both love the music as well as the light to create an energetic and emotional experience for the audience. What I do now is a combination of all these. 

The architectural element of my installations I definitely inherited from my father, who was a visionary architect. 

At the moment I am really enjoying the engineering of new light techniques, while capturing distant galaxies at night with my telescope for inspiration. In the end I feel light is a very suitable medium to communicate ‘spiritual’ concepts in the form of architectural shapes. In the last decade the tools to develop these kinds of installations became much more accessible for artists.  

The school I studied at (HKU, Music Composition and Technology) was really great for combining aesthetics and 

different media using technological tools, and made you think about the artistic implications of those technologies, which definitely shaped my thinking around building these kinds of works. Regarding the ‘Light and Space’ movement, for me James Turrell is kind of the grand maester who paved the way for what we are currently doing.  

The current form of this I would call Light, Sound, Space’ where sound and light are both used to design in four dimensional spacetime. (I mean this in a very concrete way: three dimensional light architecture, spatial sound and time as an added dimension). The industrial engineering tools that have become accessible for artists combined with the incredible software available at the moment has created a real impetus for light as a medium. We have definitely not reached the limit of what is possible, and I feel very inspired and motivated to explore what is possible. 

For me, when making art the first inspiration is always Life itself. Living your life, expanding your perspective through experiences and inner transformations, and trying to translate these memories into an aesthetic form. I also really love the research and books that Joseph Campbell wrote about mutual psychological experiences and symbols derived from our similar human physiology, through all ages and geographic locations. I find the shared human experience a really beautiful idea, and I strongly believe that we are more similar than dissimilar, and there is always common ground to communicate with each other. I try to make space and experience that enable this in a form that universally speaks to our subconscious, in an almost tualistic manner. 

I find it fascinating how light can transform our perception of the space around us, and ultimately what this teaches us about how we view the world: perhaps our perception is not so solid as we believe it to be. This ephemeral nature of light is enhanced by its incredible speed, making it quite intangible. I find it interesting to play with the idea of Peceptial Architecture, forming spaces that we can see but cannot physically feel. An experience I personally had with this, was working on an installation using walls made of laser light, when 

suddenly someone turned on the light in the space making these illusionary walls suddenly disappear. Of course I knew that these were illusions, but to my brain they felt really physical, and the sudden shock of seeing them disappear was interesting.