Two artworks by Studio Dáárheen at the Sylia mycelium exhibition ‘Metempsyhosis’ in Berlin. The artworks contain an AR augmented reality layer with a 15 second animation, made in 3d software. ‘The Communicator’, 40 x 60cm and ‘Mycelium 02’ 30 x 40cm – 2022 – Nicole Spit
The exhibition and talks aim at celebrating the intersection of art, design, science and ecology, and at exploring how the process of mycofabrication – using fungi as a tool for manufacturing – and multispecies design can reshape our perceptions, inspire new ways of thinking and reconnect us to the environment.
Metempsychosis, the idea of mind transmigration, serves as a metaphor for the transformative journey of creating with living mycelium, which not only serves as a medium but actively participates in the creative process.
The art project ‘Digital Trees Monument’ by Nicole Spit will also be featured in the 2024 Open Monuments Days in September. (Openmonumentendag)
What is there to see?
Several scannable artworks (via the AR app ‘Artivive’) from the project will be displayed indoors at ‘Hof van Kijk-Uit’ in Castricum. Oude Schulpweg 4, Castricum.
Additionally, on both Open Monuments Days, September 14 and 15, there will be a special ‘Digital Trees Monument Walk’ at 11:00 AM. (Participation costs €10, which can be booked through the Digital Trees Monument website.) During the forest walk, Nicole will tell you all about the project, show some of the participating trees, and provide background information about the project through laminated visuals.
Join us for the walk!
The project in short
‘How could we preserve old, characteristic trees? Over the past few years, many people have felt a need for the energy of nature, forests, and trees around them. Our awareness of the value of trees is changing.
More and more trees are disappearing due to logging, forest fires, or different perspectives on nature conservation. Unfortunately, we cannot restore trees like we do with stone monuments. Perhaps we can preserve monumental trees by digitally storing them in Virtual Reality?
I have captured several characteristic old trees from the municipality of Castricum and the surrounding region by scanning and digitally converting them into 3D software.
For each tree, a digitally rendered photo print with a short digital animation layer can be viewed through a free app, where the tree plays the ‘main role’ in its digital dream world. There are also 3D printed models of the trunks of four trees, in which the seeds can be stored. In September, during the Open Monuments Days, four 2D artworks will be displayed at Hof van Kijk-Uit.
Using ‘Photogrammetry’ and special software, namely ‘Blender3D’, I have digitally captured the trees in 3D. They live on, so to speak, as digital monuments in a virtual dream world.
September 14th and 15th
Would you like to know more about the background of the art project? Sign up and join us at the ‘Hof van Kijk-Uit’ on September 14 or 15 and join the walk, where I will tell you all about it. (in Dutch) Maximum of 10 people per walk and space is limited!’
On show until June 30 2024. My ‘Giant Nitrogen Nodule’ at KunstenaarsCentrumBergen in Museum Kranenburgh in Bergen Noord-Holland. I am hitching a ride with KCB member Eveline Mooibroek. From april 2024 I have become a member of the KCB KunstenaarsCentrumBergen myself.
For this exhibition, the exhibition committee had conceived a plan to give the artists affiliated with the KCB the opportunity to invite a colleague – who is not a member of the KCB – to “join in.”
The idea was to focus on young or emerging professional artists. Their works did not need to be thematically connected, and all disciplines were welcome. As a result, the exhibition is highly varied and well worth a visit.
The artists participating in “Joining In”:
Dominique Ampe (painter) + Fleur Zee | Harry Beemsterboer (photographer) + Peter van Eekelen | Wil van Blokland (ceramist) + Marianne Blijdensteijn | Eveline Braak (painter) + Emmy Beenken | Joke Burgman (painter) + Walter van Reisen | Sonja Doevendans (painter) + Rosemin Hendriks | Marianne Duif (multimedia) + Layla van der Oord | Angelique Heffelaar (ceramist) + Neely Schaap | Denise Holtkamp (drawer/painter) + André Geertse | Marinus Klap (sculptor) + Daphne Klap | Dorrit Klomp (painter) + Hilly van Eerten | Esther Koeman (mixed media) + Susan van Ham | Gerda Kruimer (drawer, sculptor) + Vincent Uilenbroek | Jawek Kwakman (digital media) + Ilse van der Woude | Eveline Mooibroek (interdisciplinary) + Nicole Spit (speculative designer) | Henk Padt (painter) + Jak Beemsterboer | Marina Rupert (painter) + Nettie Veen | Sies Vrasdonk (ceramist) + Lieselot Moed
They are presenting their work in the KCB exhibition space at Huize Kranenburgh, Cultural Estate in Bergen – address: Hoflaan 26.
Duo- exhibition ‘KOM dichterbij/ Come closer ‘ at the art route Castricum
‘”You are invited to the joint exhibition of Eveline Mooibroek and Nicole Spit.
This second edition takes place in Eveline’s studio on Pernéstraat. It promises to be another fantastic experience! You’ll see brand new works on display, and perhaps you’ll find new pieces from the collections of both artists for yourself. Their artworks reflect on society, on the human condition, and on possible futures.
‘Eveline Mooibroek’s artwork is about our perception, about the functioning of the senses and about appearances and reality. About the feeling of not being completely at ease or at home in the world we have created. Eveline is inspired by the cultivated and manipulated environment. In her work, life is frozen and frozen in an alienating way. We don’t immediately know what we see. Eveline makes awkward and sometimes incongruous art. Her world is one of contrasts and contradictions.
In Nicole and Eveline’s work, what we see isn’t always immediately clear, so
COME closer.”
When? : Sat 1 and Sun 2 June – 10am/5pm
Where?: Atelier of Eveline Mooibroek, Pernéstraat 31, Castricum
Proud to announce that I became a member of the KunstenaarsCentrumBergen in April 2024. (KCB) The KCB is embedded in a long, beautiful tradition, but also with several sparkling new ventures. To stay in the spring mood. I hope to be a unique addition to the KCB, with my speculative design and vision of the future artworks.
On Sunday, May 5 at 5:00 PM, the opening of the exhibition ‘Hitchhiking’, in which I am participating, will take place.
And in January 2025, I will participate in the KCB’s ‘Salon of New Members’. (Still a long way off, but there are still activities planned this year) The Bergen Artists Center is located on the first floor of Museum Kranenburgh. The KCB is a foundation for professional artists in the painting village of Bergen and organizes changing exhibitions for its members and guests throughout the year and has around 200 members. – Nicole Spit – Studio Dáárheen
KunstenaarsCentrumBergen | KCB in culturele buitenplaats Kranenburgh, 1e verdieping Hoflaan 26 1861 CR Bergen NH
Speculative Futures is an international community of meetups focused on Speculative & Critical Design, Design Fiction, Futurism, and Strategy & Foresight and any vision or approach which involves using design as a vehicle to speculate about potential or alternate futures. Are you also interested in those topics and want to join for a meetup? Or perhaps want to share your speculative design project? Stay tuned and follow us on our meetup page or instagram page
We host speakers — practitioners, designers, artists, teachers, students, and other professionals who will be talking about relevant praxis and methods and inspiring projects about future thinking and envisioning futures.
We also host workshops that will allow you to learn how to conduct and apply futures thinking in a variety of circumstances as a method of synthesis and strategy.
Who are the driving forces of Speculative Futures Amsterdam?
Nicole Spit, organizer and co-lead of Speculative futures Amsterdam. Nicole is a speculative designer, originating in productdesign, and owner of design Studio Dáárheen. ‘I convert striking findings or issues that amaze me from my (trend-) research into speculative design and art objects’.
Mari Fujiwara is a researcher and facilitator at Digital Society School @digitalsocietyschool with a background in philosophy and new media. She likes engaging on topics around societal challenges in interactive and playful ways, and that is how she got interested in speculative design. Her current side project is developing a video game which touches on social exhaustion and the theme is to escape a family Christmas dinner.
Theo Ploeg, initiator of Speculative Futures Amsterdam,SFA ambassador and in his own words “Renegade sociologist caught up in design, uses speculative design to tell meaningful and positive stories of alternative realities’. Theo is owner of Studio Hyperspace.
What is Speculative Design?
With speculative design, a tool for future thinking and creating, we try to focus on the preferred futures. We cannot predict the future, there are many different possibilities, but we can think about possible futures based on current developments. We can also use ‘Backcasting’, backcasting is a planning method that starts with defining a desirable future and then works backwards to identify policies and programs that will connect that specified future to the present.
Are you also interested in Speculative design and Future thinking and do you want to join for a meetup? Or perhaps want to share your speculative design project? Stay tuned and follow us on our meetup page or instagram page . We would love to welcome you in our community and are also interested in your thoughts.
‘Artist and speculative designer Nicole Spit gives her vision of the field bean of the future in 6 works of art. On display are her works of art, alienating and exciting objects, in which nitrogen nodules, ‘field bean blood’ and future agriculture are discussed.
An art-science research project with speculative design object concerning the field bean ‘Vicia Faba’. The field bean is a prospect for the proteïn transition in the province of Groningen in the Netherlands.
What is so special about this crop? How can we make it future proof? What is going to be the future of agriculture in this area if we listen to the farmers living in this area? The nitrogen fixing possibilities of the field bean are much needed in the current agriculture plans of the Netherlands. Are there ways to alter the crop with genetic modification, so that we can make it maximum beneficial for humans ánd for nature?’.
^ Here we see an enlargement of tubers of a field bean plant, showing the pink red fleshy inside.
Legumes, including the field bean, can fix nitrogen from the air in collaboration with ‘Rhizobacteria’ living in the soil and store it in root tubers. These root nodules arise after an infection of the bacteria. This infection is not dangerous for the plant, in fact, both the bean plant and the rhizobacteria benefit from it.
A hair root curls around the bacteria, after which an infection thread is formed. The bacteria can enter the root through these tubes and form root nodules there. The bacteria continue to live in the root of the field bean, with both the rhizobacteria and the plant benefiting from this cooperation. The bacteria ensure that nitrogen from the air is converted into usable nitrogen for the plant in exchange for sugars supplied by the plant.
The root nodules contain leghemoglobin, an iron-containing substance that, just like our blood, can bind oxygen and gives the nodules a pinkish color. The oxygen concentration is low enough not to interfere with nitrogen fixation, but high enough for the bacteria to breathe.
Could be seen at art space Artphy on from August 5 until October 22 2023. This special group exhibition, dedicated to the protein transition, presents new works by international artists: Anna Dumitriu, Ana Kun/Dan Perjovschi, Marc Bijl, Mitzi Schreuder, Dasha Tsapenko, Nicole Spit, Maro Pebo, Danielle van Vree, Špela Petrič and Domenique Himmelsbach de Vries.
The exhibition promises to be a unique experience, in which art in relation to the protein transition is central.
The official opening was at August 5 by Tjeerd Jongsma, director of Institute for Sustainable Process Technology and Fascinating.
Ten artists from Europe and South America, several scientists, performances, lectures and a concert…
Under the umbrella ‘Digestible’, the name of this exhibition, Artphy is developing many activities this summer.
Where: Kempkebosweg 4 , 9591VG Onstwedde When: The exhibition at Artphy can be visited freely on Friday, Saturday and Sunday afternoon from 13:00 to 17:00.
Or by appointment. Tel: 0653236241 The expo runs until October 22 in 2023.
Nicole Spit & Eveline Mooibroek duo-exhibition at ‘Kunstfietsroute Castricum 2023’.
Invitation to the duo-exhibition of Nicole Spit and Eveline Mooibroek at the Art Route Castricum 2023
This year the two artists will present themselves together on the Kunstfietsroute in Eveline’s studio. This results in an interesting meeting in which they look for common ground in their work, both visually and in terms of content.
— Nicole Spit— Nicole Spit is an artist and speculative (future) designer. Speculative design imagines futures based on current technological and social developments. A recurring theme in her work is the tension between synthetic nature, manipulated by human intervention, and biologically grown nature. This often produces alienating and sometimes bizarre images. For example, for her ‘Digital Tree Monument’ she digitally converted trees into 3d software to a virtual world and 3d printed them. She also works with Artificial Intelligence creation and researches the possibilities of genetic modification. What could future nature look like?’
— Eveline Mooibroek — ‘Eveline Mooibroek’s artwork is about our perception, about the functioning of the senses and about appearances and reality. About the feeling of not being completely at ease or at home in the world we have created. Eveline is inspired by the cultivated and manipulated environment. In her work, life is frozen and frozen in an alienating way. We don’t immediately know what we see. Eveline makes awkward and sometimes incongruous art. Her world is one of contrasts and contradictions. The artificial beauty, and the beauty of the ugly: she tries to bring it together into one image.’
In my artproject ‘Digital Tree Monument’ I selected eight trees in Castricum, which all represent a specific tree threat. Like nutrient-poor soil. urbanization, tree diseases, drought, salinazation. Some, like the old chestnut tree at Huize Koningsbosch or the old Willow at the ‘Tuin van Kapitein Rommel’ have already been felled and live on in the digital world.
We can restore stone monuments, but unfortunately not old monumental trees. How could we preserve them, with their specific phenotypic properties? Is a digital arboretum in a metaverse perhaps an alternative?
Opening of the Digital Tree Monument Exhibition by Alderman Brouwer of the municipality Castricum. (foto: R. Redmijer)The 2d prints can be scanned with an augmented reality app for an extra animation layer.3D printed trees of Castricum in their digital world.‘Digitaal Boment Monument’ book, (Dutch, hardcover, full color, 32 pages. With AR scannable images)
Als kunstproject voor de gemeente Castricum zal Nicole Spit in 2022 een digitaal bomenproject verder onderzoeken en uitwerken.
photogrammetry van een Castricumse boom
Tijdens de COVID Lock downs merkten veel mensen dat ze behoefte hebben aan energie uit de natuur, bos en bomen om zich heen. Onze bewustwording over de waarde van bomen verandert. Steeds meer bomen verdwijnen door kap of bosbranden of door een andere kijk op natuurbehoud. Daarom wil ik onderzoeken of we monumentale bomen wellicht behouden door ze digitaal op te slaan in Virtual Reality?
Ik wil door middel ‘Photogrammetry’ en speciale 3dsoftware, namelijk ‘Blender3d’, bomen digitaal in 3d vastleggen. Ze leven dan als het ware voort, als digitaal monument, in een virtuele droomwereld.
Mijn plan is om een aantal karakteristieke oude bomen uit de gemeente Castricum of regio, vast te leggen door ze te scannen en digitaal om te zetten.
Per boom zal ik zodoende een digitaal gerenderde fotoprint met daarover een korte digitale AR filmlaag waarin de boom de ‘hoofdrol’ heeft in zijn digitale droomwereld, creëren.
Daarna wil ik met deze boomgegevens in september een mooie tentoonstelling inrichten, waarbij ik de mensen uit Castricum en regio, bewust wil maken van de waarde van oude karakteristieke bomen uit hun eigen omgeving, van (verdwijnende) natuur, van nieuwe technieken en verbondenheid kweken met de natuur in de regio Castricum.
Het gehele proces wil ik ook vastleggen en laten zien. Vind je het leuk om te zien hoe en wat er allemaal bij komt kijken? Dan is dat proces is binnenkort te volgen op, onder andere deze site Art.studiodaarheen.nl op https://digitaalbomenmonument.wordpress.com/ en op instagram @digitaalbomenmonument . Kijk je ook mee?
