Umwelt Amstel

This summer we show two exhibitions  together in and around Glazen Huis. Umwelt Amstel by Floris Schönfeld and Telling the Bees by Stef Veldhuis.

In UMWELT Amstel, artist Floris Schönfeld explores the possible entanglements of various entities within the Amstelpark. Central to this is the connections between the living world present in the park and the technological infrastructure that we as humans have built in the urban environment: from insect hedges and tree roots to underground data cables and servers. The work playfully seeks a way to make visible new, unexpected connections and the intertwining of these different systems with our human existence.

For the project, artist Floris Schönfeld has developed four site-specific sculptures titled Portals, which are placed around the Glass House. These sculptures are connected to the existing work PUK* Processor and the new work SIM Amstel, which are positioned inside the pavilion. All works are connected to one another via a mesh of data cables installed above ground in the park.

Portals

The starting point for these site-specific sculptures are natural structures in the park’s landscape, such as tree stumps, insect hedges, and clumps of fallen trees. Schönfeld has developed these forms into hybrid sculptures in which natural materials such as willow and reed are interwoven with data cables and sensors. These works, developed through intensive collaboration with designer and weaving artist Esmé Hofman, combine traditional reed and willow weaving with cable weaving techniques used in contemporary data centers. All these works are connected to one another via a network or mesh of data cables running above ground through the park, forming a visual and thematic line.

PUK* Processor

PUK* Processor (2020) is a specially developed computer server that houses two large ant colonies. The work contains a series of working computational components embedded in plaster modules. Two ant colonies of the species Messor Barbarus live throughout this computational infrastructure. The work brings together two information systems: the binary computational signals of the machines and the pheromone-driven communication of the ant colonies. These two logics collide within the work, creating both the possibility of a malfunction in both systems and, at the same time, a potential symbiosis.

SIM Amstel

The work SIM Amstel is a so-called simulated environment, a digital visualization in which the world beneath the ground of the Amstelpark is made visible. The complexity of this underground world is central to the work, in which various systems – such as tree roots and mycelium, water flows and artificial data networks – are connected to one another in a speculative manner.

About the artist

Floris Schönfeld is a visual artist currently based in Amsterdam. The focus of his work in the last years has been the relationship between fiction and belief. In his work he is constantly trying to find the line between defining his context and being defined by it. In his work he is interested in the perspectives of other living beings, exploring our human ability to get close to the experiences of others. Read more here.