Auxetic Landscapes & Vocode at Museum Jan Cunen

01 september 2022

Auxetic Landscapes seen from the side

Auxetic Landscapes and Vocode exhibited at Museum Jan Cunen

11 September 2022 – 15 January 2023

From 11 September 2022 to 15 January 2023, both Vocode and our new installation Auxetic Landscapes will be on show in the exhibition Kunst en vliegwerk at Museum Jan Cunen.

Close-up of Auxetic Landscapes' structure

Close-up of Auxetic Landscape's structure.

Presenting Auxetic Landscapes

What happens when humans enter an untouched landscape? Using Museum Jan Cunen’s location coordinates as input, Auxetic Landscapes is defined by an algorithm that produces randomly generated auxetic patterns, developed by Eindhoven University of Technology.

Undisturbed, the installation remains static and silent in the space. Like an organism, it reacts to our presence and slowly comes to life, returning to neutral once we distance ourselves. The combination of a location-based pattern and the interaction with visitors creates a dynamic field of hills and valleys that is different every time and everywhere.

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Find out more about Auxetic Landscapes

Vocode by Fillip Studios translates sound into image by making a pen dance on paper

Vocode's pen dancing across the paper.

About Vocode

Vocode is an ode to languages on the verge of extinction. During the exhibition Not in so many words at the Kröller-Müller Museum in 2020, the installation translated audio fragments of the UNESCO Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger into unique drawings.

Twelve of these Vocode drawings, along with the installation itself, will be on display during the exhibition at Museum Jan Cunen. Moreover, a second printing of the Vocode catalog will be available at the museum’s shop.

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Find out more about Vocode

About the exhibition ‘Kunst en vliegwerk’

From the invention of the wheel to the rocket: for as long as they exist, humans have been looking for ways to make the world around them a little more beautiful or efficient. Equally interesting is the search that precedes this. This is where the power of imagination lies and where there is still plenty of room to dream. Visual artist Panamarenko (1940-2019) was an absolute master in this field. His scribbles, constructions, and machines testify to an indomitable ingenuity. Not focused on the result, but on the intention. With extra attention to the beauty of failure.

It is a mission that still appeals to many artists. Johannes Langkamp (1985), Fillip Studios (Roos Meerman, 1991 and Tom Kortbeek, 1987), Stan Wannet (1977), Romy Joya Kuldip Singh (1993), and Wim Warrink (1983) are also intrigued by the functioning — or non-functioning — of the world around us. What are other possibilities of human inventions, if we look beyond their usual applications? And when does the machine take on a life of its own? In Kunst en vliegwerk, Panamarenko’s ideas form the starting point for a contemporary group exhibition in which gravity is defied, dancing pens record secret languages, gears set animals in motion and machines bring the museum villa to life.

(Roughly translated from the Dutch text by Museum Jan Cunen)

Museum Jan Cunen_Kunst en vliegwerk_Panamarenko

Panamarenko, Paradox (1980-1986), Musée d'Ixelles, picture by Vincent Everarts