Bergen Centre for Electronic Arts

Joost Rekveld (b 1970, Netherlands) is an artist who is motivated by the question what we can learn from a dialogue with machines. In his work, he explores the sensory consequences of systems of his own design, often inspired by forgotten corners in the history of science and technology. These systems combine temporary dogma’s in the form of procedures or code, with more open-ended elements such as material processes or networks of interactions that are too complex to predict. His films, installations and performances are composed documentaries of the worlds opened by such systems, and in their sensuality they are an attempt to reach a more intimate and embodied understanding of our technological world.

His films have been shown world-wide in a wide range of festivals and venues for experimental film, animation or other kinds of moving image. He realized several installations and did many collaborative projects involving composers, music ensembles, theatre companies and dance companies. Since 1990 he has been putting together many film programmes, he curated several exhibitions and he occasionally publishes essays. He has been giving lectures since 1993, has been teaching since 1996, and from 2008 to 2014 he was the course director of the ArtScience Interfaculty of the Royal Conservatoire and the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague.

At the moment he is starting his PhD research into ‘Open-Ended Machines’, investigating the dynamic between formalization and material agency by making a series of works that deal with the fundamentals of measurement and computing.