WOONMACHINE / Installation / 2010
LLAC: BELGIAN PAVILION VENICE / proposal for the Belgian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale / 2010
LLAC: JUVENILE DETENTION CENTER / Architecture competition / 2009
VIEWMASTER / Instalation-performance / 2007-2009
CUBE / temporary projection space on “Mont des Arts” Brussels / 2008
MULTIPLICATIONS 02 / Video-instalation at Netwerk, Aalst / 2007
BORDER SQUARE 02 / Instalation at Netwerk, Aalst / 2007
MULTIPLICATIONS 01 / Working period at Les Bains, Brussels / Video-Instalation / 2007
TSUNAMI MONUMENT / Monument for the victims of the tsunami / Architectural Competition / 2006
IMPOSSIBLE FIGURES / Scenography and Dramaturgy for a solo dance piece / 2006
ROOM WITH A VIEW / Installation in a private apartment on the 25th floor / 2005
MIRRORING THE CITY / Proposition for an urban installation / 2005
RE-AXIS / Installation at Kunsfort near Haarlem / 2005
BORDER SQUARE 01 / Story about a subversive monument / short story – graphics / 2004
MONUMENTS OF SUBVERSION / Notes on the border square story / 2004
EU is not USA / Essay on the inevitable unclarity of the European Union / 2003
MULTIPLE PORTRAITS / Portraits consisting of combined googled faces / presented as lightboxes / 2003
YEAGER AT FLIGHT / Essay on the impossibility of the nomadic position / 2001
The “WoonMachine” is a house in which living takes place without inhabitants. It is both a modernist glass house and a black box. The installation explores the boundaries between 'real' living and the staging of it. Through the use of sound, light and automated curtains an ordinary ‘day in a life’ is evoked in a sequence lasting 37 minutes.
A phenomenological space: The “WoonMachine” appeals directly to the senses of the visitor. We hear someone walking on the wooden floor, turning on the tap, running a shower and the rustling of clothes as they fall to the ground. From outside comes the roar of a car passing by and crickets chirping in the background. The light changes from harsh and overhead at noon, through to low and orange at sunset and soft blue in the morning. A voice orders the inhabitant to stand. She asks him to perform very precise movements such as lying on his back, pushing away the duvet a little and raising his torso up with his elbows. The inhabitant of the “WoonMachine” has no body. We hear him move and as the light turns on and the Venetian blinds suddenly close, we can also observe the consequences of his actions. Yet we do not see him. He has no image — the body of the inhabitant is a projection in the mind of the visitor.
A psychological space: In the “WoonMachine” an ordinary day is dismantled. Every movement, sound (and silence) is systematically developed and staged in an endless loop of light and sound. The detailed actions attract all the attention and hardly leave any space. The recognizability of these actions is almost disturbing. It is as if we are engaged in a compulsive neurosis, caught in the everyday life that unfolds in a place floating somewhere between a modernist house, a 19th-century display cabinet and an Ikea viewing stand.
A performative space: The ‘WoonMachine” is an active space. Rather than just shaping a framework in which the action can happen, the “WoonMachine” provokes the action itself and is thus an architecture determined by what it can bring about rather than by what it shows. By accessing this space the spectator becomes a participant and can choose to actively live in the installation, or, simply by his presence, be experienced as ‘part of a scene’. The installation therefore works on two levels: it is both a small theatre where sound and light produce a succession of domestic scenes and also a space containing all the features of a real house such as running water, Ikea furniture and a cooker. The visitor can make coffee or take a shower if he or she feels like it.