Het Decor Van Je Bestaan is an exhibition/clubnight Elastiek organised for Museumnacht 2020 in Roodkapje, Rotterdam. On the night, visitors could take a stroll through an indoor synthetic park packed with art and installations and dance to electronic music from local dj’s, accompanied by live visuals projected on plastic screens.
Elastiek: Sebastiaan Verbeeten, Daan van de Geest, Rutger Nijkamp
Visual artists: Mees Bergshoeff, Zora Prins, Oliver Helmstadt, Matas Buckus, Robben Fuhler, Omar Aboe Dazki, Sterre de Jonge, Vincent Boon, Thomas David
DJ’s: IO, Tember, Nijkamp, Toro Piscine
Location: Roodkapje, Rotterdam
Date: 07/03/2020
Design is control. Design is all around us. The public space has been shaped in such a way to make us act in a certain way. The nature we find in our urbanised country has been accounted for in every way possible, leaving little space for randomness and freedom. Every detail, from trimmed grass to tested water, is quantified. But where does this relentless pursuit of control lead?
Elastiek confronted this question by transforming the Roodkapje art space into a synthetic park. Mimicking a traditional planned city park, it featured plastic grass, trash-bins, benches, a pond, trees and even security camera’s. Lights and backdrop videos were programmed to create a day/night cycle every hour, and a gardener (performance) ensured tidiness and well-watered plastic plants. This artificial landscape served as a stark reflection of Dutch society's unyielding desire to regulate its environment, reaching a level of social order described by a Dutch noise band in the mid-2000s as "A degree of social order that would make even the Nazis jealous." The project prompts us to question whether we are encroaching on elements of the natural world that might be better left untouched.
Elastiek confronted this question by transforming the Roodkapje art space into a synthetic park. Mimicking a traditional planned city park, it featured plastic grass, trash-bins, benches, a pond, trees and even security camera’s. Lights and backdrop videos were programmed to create a day/night cycle every hour, and a gardener (performance) ensured tidiness and well-watered plastic plants. This artificial landscape served as a stark reflection of Dutch society's unyielding desire to regulate its environment, reaching a level of social order described by a Dutch noise band in the mid-2000s as "A degree of social order that would make even the Nazis jealous." The project prompts us to question whether we are encroaching on elements of the natural world that might be better left untouched.
The synthetic park contained physical installations, video works, paintings, and sculptures.
The concept is built upon Elastiek’s earlier film, Het Decor Van Je Bestaan and was inspired by Hans van der Meer’s photography series, Nederland: Uit voorraad leverbaar, exploring the recognisable and interchangeable features of Dutch towns and villages through public design. The photo series becomes a reflection and reaction on the process that created that sense of interchangeability, critiquing the mediocrity and sadness of Dutch urban planning.
