Bitesize Lecture with Joost Rekveld

Joost Rekveld (1970) has been making abstract films and kinetic installations since 1991, originally inspired by the idea of a music for the eye. Through his invention of various animation techniques he became interested in the prehistory of moving image media, especially the technological history of perspective, optics, motion capture and scanning. These themes became the basis for a number of films and installations.

His recent work is moving away from film towards more architectural and theatrical forms of articulated light. His side activities include teaching at Artscience (formerly known as the Interfaculty Image and Sound) in The Hague, and at the masters programme MediaTechnology at Leiden University. Incidentally he is active as a curator, and most notably he curated the conference and film programme Sonic Light 2003, a festival dedicated to light art in various media. Last fall he organised the event 4D in the Film Museum in response to an open invitation from the Dutch Film Museum in Amsterdam.

Taking as a point of departure the body of scientific and technological in the collections of the Dutch Film Museum, he put together a programme consisting of an extensive selection of scientific and experimental films, a series of six artists’ presentations (including historical figures such as Otto Piene and Yona Friedman), and an exhibition which was being updated weekly. This programme was an investigation into the heritage of the utopic, modernist body of ideas that was developed at the time when film was still a new medium.

For Joost Rekveld, putting together this event was a kind of “public research” triggered by the recent shift in his work towards more spatial forms and scientific sources of inspiration. He wil present some of the backgrounds to 4D in the Film Museum, referring to the development of his own work and he will explain the continuity between his abstract films, his light installations and recent theatrical collaborations. He will show some of his sources of inspiration such as the history of optics, crystallography and biology, and discuss his embryonic future projects.

• www.lumen.nu/rekveld
• http://www.joostrekveld.net/