Dutch museum links Studio Drift to Vincent van Gogh

Studio Drift will be represented with Flylight in the exhibition ‘Designers meet Van Gogh’ at Het Noordbrabants Museum in ‘s Hertogenbosch in the Netherlands. Yksi Ontwerp curated the show and selected about 85 works. Our beautiful Flylight will be on view from January 24th till April 26th, 2015.

In 2015 it will be exactly 125 years since the famous painter Vincent van Gogh passed away. Along with approximately thirty national and international institutes, Het Noordbrabants Museum is seizing this moment to honour Vincent van Gogh, within the theme ‘125 years of inspiration’. In this exhibition the museum links important Dutch designers with Vincent van Gogh. Nature, the simple life and farmland are the three most important sources of inspiration of Van Gogh and will form a guide through the exhibition. The museum invited Studio Drift to participate with Flylight and Dandelight, work that are inspired by nature as well.

Flylight
Flylight (2007-2009) is a site-specific light installation that directly interacts with its surroundings. It consists of delicate glass tubes that light up in an unpredictable way. The light sculpture acts like the behaviour of a flock of birds in flight; symbolizing the conflict between the safeness of the group and the freedom of the individual.

While birds are the ultimate symbol of freedom, in a flock they move as one single entity, creating mesmerizing patterns. This flock behavior is an example of “self-organization”, meaning that no single bird leads the flight. Amazingly enough, each individual senses the speed and the direction of the group.
Flylight translates this flock behaviour into specially developed agent-based software. This means that the patterns in which the installation lights up, are not pre-programmed but have an interactive compound – just like a real flock of birds.

Philosophy
The work questions the delicate balance between the group and the individual. Just like birds people find safety in a group, while at the same time they are forced to act according to a set of rules, on which society functions. Who chooses total individual freedom above these rules, is forced to operate outside of society. Where lies the perfect balance between the two? With Flylight, Studio Drift reflects upon this question in a both poetic and aesthetic manner.

About Studio Drift
Lonneke Gordijn and Ralph Nauta founded studio Drift in 2006. Flylight is a perfect example of Drift’s philosophy: it explores the relationship between nature, technology and mankind. Moreover, the working process involves continuing collaborations with scientists, university departments, research facilities, programmers and engineers. As our visual language is characterized by dreamy and poetic aesthetics, the concept behind our work is often based on an unexpectedly critical engagement. The results are truly innovative and ground-breaking projects – a testament to the cross-pollination between the technically advanced and the aesthetically beautiful, permeated with awareness of future potentials.