Presence, the exhibition by Daan Roosegaarde, is a call to action to save the planet

In the first room, blue light appears to be scanning the space and the visitors continuously, like a copier. Whenever the light is blocked, it leaves prints or traces on the light-sensitive oor.

The grid pattern with massive rectangular blocks in the rst room is inspired by paintings by Mondrian and the austere layout of the Dutch landscape. Blue light appears to be scanning the space and the visitors continuously, like a copier. Whenever the light is blocked, it leaves prints or traces on the light-sensitive floor.

Daan Roosegaarde in the “scan room”

Detail of the scan room

Loosely inspired by the mini- malism of light artist James Turrell, this work comprises nothing but the visitors and the room, with the room taking pictures of the visitors rather than the other way around.

To avoid reducing people to brains with eyes, “Presence” works with basic physical principles rather than with screens or sensors. The body as a whole functions as an interface between visitors and the world and all of their senses as well as sensorimotor capacities are involved.      

Looking, feeling, hiding, rolling, pushing, sitting or, if push comes to shove, lying down are all within the bounds of possibility.

The room that visitors may well experience as the most demanding is completely empty, like a white cube. Loosely inspired by the minimalism of light artist James Turrell, this work comprises nothing but the visitors and the room, with the room taking pictures of the visitors rather than the other way around.

The second room is a bit like a dark room. Walls and floor are photosensitive and a flash, which is triggered at regular intervals, prints the image of the visitors.

The second room is a bit like a dark room, where walls and floor are photosensitive. It shows very directly that we have a relationship with the world around us.

The second room is a large empty room where, at regular intervals, there is a flash that impresses you, or your trace, on photosensitive walls or floor.

Daan Roosegaarde in the second room, which acts like a darkroom.

In the third room, the wind gives shape to an installation of very light micro-balls that cover the floor. They are made from a biodegradable polymer coated with a photoluminescent substance.

The third room might look like the landscape from another planet. It is a landscape constantly changing, because its shape depends on the actions of visitors.

In the third room, the floor is covered by thousands of micro-balls made of a biodegradable polymer coated with a photoluminescent substance.

In the third room, the floor is covered by thousands of micro-balls made of a biodegradable polymer coated with a photoluminescent substance.

Daan Roosegaarde explains: “This installation required two years of work and several prototypes, engineering, research on materials. We wanted to create something intimate and personal. High-tech but also human. We worked with the idea of ​​creating a landscape, a map of the world yet to be discovered. Is it a landscape of Mars or is it just a playground? There are different levels of reading. And while we worked on it, poetry came”.

In the third room is the wind that gives shape to thousands of very light micro-balls covering the floor. They are made from a biodegradable polymer coated with a photoluminescent substance.

Large photoluminescent spheres dominate the fourth room, the color “loads” them and shows our imprint.

The fourth space contains spherical objects and behaves like a kind of freestyle planetarium in which visitors can build their own solar system.

Presence can also be understood as an unex- pected and exciting means to shake up and enlarge the framework in which people’s activities and thoughts take place, even if it’s only for
a little while.

Daan Roosegaarde knows that he can raise people’s awareness by immersing them in visualizations and stories that touch them emotionally and make them realize how precious and vulnerable the earth and therefore they themselves are.

Another important artistic in uence was the land and environmental art of the 1960s and 1970s, for example that of Michael Heizer, Walter De Maria and Robert Smithson.

In the last room, the so-called Lolas are little transparent spheres that, like some kind of intriguing organisms, draw phosphorescent lines reminiscent of cave drawings or perhaps the secret writing of artist Cy Twombly.

In the last room, there are 25-30 balls with a light source inside. If you move them, they create light patterns on the floor. You create the landscape.

Presence is an invitation to break with the role of the civilized museum visitor and enter into a di erent relationship with the work by intervening.

Visitors change from spectators into makers and from makers into parts of the installa- tion that are subsequently looked at by other visitors.

“I wanted to create a place where you feel connected,” says Roosegaarde, “You make the work and the work makes you.”