VLOEDLIJN (FLOODLINE) 1:1250

VLOEDLIJN (FLOODLINE) 1:1250

In 1993 and 1995 the IJssel in Deventer reached over 7 metres +NAP* and the water touched the top of the dyke. In 2012, secondary channels will be unearthed to create extra space for water storage, this way, the chances of the water reaching this height again will be reduced to once every 1250 years. TIDELINE – 1 in 1250 – for the exhibition ‘Hoog Water! – De Stad – De Rivier – ’ (i.e. High Water! – The City – The River – ) illustrates the time span between cause and consequence of the Ruimte voor de Rivier** policy in The Netherlands. I have requested every river level in Deventer between 1992 and 2012 from Rijkswaterstaat and put the data in a graph. The whimsical graph line indicates 240 different measuring moments that represent 240 months (20 years). This supplies us with an elongated pattern of measuring points showing concentrations of average, consistent fluctuations spanning the seasons, and every now and again peaks up or down.
FLOODLINE – 1 in 1250 – is about measuring and marking, planning and controlling, ‘the flexibility of our landscape’. I pose the question to what extent the whimsicality of nature can be controlled, directed and shaped in a carefully laid out landscape, with a chance of flooding of 1 in 1250.
The 240 measuring points are indicated with an equal amount of markers, placed in a line of 8×60 metres. Every marker has its own unique code consisting of the year and month of its measuring point. The markers symbolise working in- and designing the landscape in our desperate attempts to control the unexpected and unpredictable. As with many of my other works, a blueprint exists, a kind of score I follow with great precision. However, the end results look coincidental, whimsical, and elusive, just like the river.

July 2012.
* NAP stands for ‘Normaal Amsterdam Peil’, or ‘Normal Level in Amsterdam’, and is the reference height used for measuring water levels.
** Ruimte voor de Rivier is a Dutch ‘Key Planning Decision’ that was enacted on the 26th of January 2007. Its goals is to prevent flooding of the larger rivers and the improvement of the ‘spatial quality’ of the river areas.

AGGREGATES

AGGREGATES

A piece of art as part of the bi-annual bicycle route ‘Van Hier tot Ginder’ in lovely Okkenbroek in Overijssel.

For just a couple of weeks (sometimes just days) a year the Bosbaan in Okkenbroek is used for its original purpose, a natural ice rink.
For the biggest part of the year the Bosbaan is an oval pond with (liquid) water.

The aggregation situation of a substance is the state it is in, either gaseous, liquid or solid.
If water freezes (solidifies) hexagonal crystals appear.
This work with the title ‘Aggregates’ has hexagonal structures floating on the water of the Bosbaan.
Each structure is constructed of modules that exist of three elements, 3 atoms, H2-O; the water molecule.

June 2012

WHISPERING GEOMETRY

WHISPERING GEOMETRY

The Amsterdam Foundation for Arts organised PROTOPARK in the Siegerpark in Amsterdam. PROTOPARK was about creative experiments with the public green domain.

Beneath the surface of a pond 4 synchronous airbubbles float up to the water’s surface with intervals of 10 seconds.
This is a reference to the gaseous and fen-like subsoil in Amsterdam.
The expanding circles on the water’s surface touch each other and will create a geometric interference pattern.

Summer 2002

SEED SOUND

SEED SOUND

An installation in the water reservoir of the former water tower in Oost Souburg.
On the concrete floor of the pitch black space a projection of slowly pulsating tremors in water will be shown.
The tremors quicken, the waves lose their rhythm, patterns shift from strict geometric shapes into chaos to new arrangements, but the process always returns to the fundamental, the heartbeat…

March 2001