After being diagnosed with tinnitus, it seemed that I could no longer hear silence, only faint and sometimes loud clusters of persistent ringing. It can not be switched off or paused like a device. Eyes can close but ears stay open, always sensing and hearing.
Niet Stil is a meditation on the impossibility of stillness using mechanized noise-producing heirlooms procured from images of abundance and death. I constructed components around the forms of found materials, selecting objects portrayed in protocapitalist Dutch still-life paintings. The sculptures function as autonomous musical instruments, blending visual and sonic elements derived from home decor, fake food displays, and analog modular synthesizers.
The installation operates as a mechanical synthesizer, comprising an interconnected system where all components function interdependently within a self-contained framework, driven by mechanical inputs and outputs. Proximity sensors, positioned near slowly rotating, irregular, handmade forms, scan their surfaces like a CD player’s laser head. These surfaces vary between smooth, visually guided patterns and textured irregularities. The sensors capture and transmit dynamic data, modulating synthesizers and triggering electromechanical speaker valves, gongs, bells, and tines. By merging electronic randomness with mechanical imperfection, the system generates continuously evolving sounds and movements that shift in response to the spectator’s presence within its range.
Niet Stil, contains acoustic, spatial, immersive, and improvisational elements that all happen at once and in different places throughout. It can not be completely captured in a video or audio format. It must be experienced in person.
