Fondation Constant
Sound design for 4 virtual / augmented reality experiences.
About
Enter New Babylon is a Mixed Reality Installation with four worlds, where the audience can experience a contemporary reflection on New Babylon. During the edition at Tetem, two of the worlds can be experienced, Echoes of Oblivion and We Don’t Want to Fill Our Days With Regrets, along with an exhibition of photos from the sixties of Constants New Babylon project. New Babylon is a project that Dutch artist Constant Nieuwenhuys (1920-2005) created in the sixties. With New Babylon Constant formulates a vision of the future. The project comprises a multitude of sketches, drawings, texts, models and constructions proposing a futuristic city in which the means of production becomes collective property and the nomadic, creative and playful human takes the center stage. The inhabitants are invited to discover and enact their playful human nature.
Video artist Dennis Molema has transformed Constant’s Grote gele sector (1967) into a digital 3D model to serve a virtual location for Enter New Babylon. Originally, Grote gele sector is a three-dimensional scale model.
Six writers from Poetry Circle Nowhere spent three months working with six designers from the HKU. Led by Joris Weijdom of the HKU, they experimented with the possibilities of virtual and mixed reality and developed four completely different experiences, reflecting on New Babylon.
Can these young makers still dream of a future or does every dream turn into a dystopia under the weight of today’s challenges? This was the question with which Kim van der Horst, stepdaughter of the artist, director of Fondation Constant and initiator, started the project. The answer is four worlds, each with their own reflection on the future.
Scenographer Guus van Geffen built an installation in which the visitor experiences the worlds and subsequently also becomes a spectator of other visitors who enter the VR worlds.
Credits
Writers: Jasper Albinus, Steff Geelen, Roziena Salihu, Nabil Thkidousset, Nina Vermeulen, Luna Wicks
Designers: Emma Bourguignon, Juriaan Gregor, Morgan Henry, Bianca Lurvink, Aina Roca, René ‘t Hart
Design 3D model Grote gele sector: Dennis Molema
Artistic team: Pol Eggermont, Guus van Geffen, Kim van der Horst, Dennis Molema, Lisa Weeda
Advisor technical dramaturgy, coach concept development: Joris Weijdom
VR Designer: Frank Bosma
Scenography: Guus van Geffen
Sound Design: Jorg Schellekens
Production Leader: Leonie Baars
Location manager: Ruben Coers
Opening
8 July 2021, A-Lab (Amsterdam, NL)