DeepSurface
June 1999
Recently the exhibition DeepSurface - the unvisual image of NOX/Lars Spuybroek - could be seen in the Hilversum gallery Exedra. As can be expected from Lars Spuybroek it was not a regular panorama exhibition where the neatly photographed work, complete with informative title plates, hangs from to the wall. Instead, the visitor is expected to undergo a total experience, to feel some of Spuybroek's intentions.

The Exedra space is spanned with three horizontal strips of pleated cloth. Images are projected on this cloth. Because the windows have been chalked white the area receives a light clinical atmosphere. A smell of fresh plastic is lingering and a lightly modulating humming tone is heard. This tone is controlled by two springs that are attached in the tightening cables of the pleated cloths. The springs are attached to sensors, oscillators and loudspeakers. The base tone of 800 Hz can fluctuate 3 Hz higher or lower by slight changes in the tension of the cloth, for example by contact with visitors.

Over-head view of installation. The cloth is hanging from tightening cables that are attached to the columns.

The projected images are black & white animated diagrams that were at the base of the designs of NOX. With some imagination, one could say that not the design, but the concept of the design is shown. These concepts are generated in the computer. In the accompanying text, Spuybroek states that the projected images are not invisible, but are unvisual.

There are two blind spots in the work of NOX: the diagrammatic interior of the computer and the neurological interior of the human body. These blind spots - conception and perception - however are the main factors in the work of NOX. This exhibition tries to visualise those two factors.

Installation: pleated cloth on which the images are projected. 3D image: take your 3D glasses.

Conventional drawings, renderings, photo's and texts are not present at the exhibit, but are instead collected in a fancy, small book. This 'first NOX-monograph' is considering the volume of pages by some colleague-architects of a refreshingly small size, without once giving the reader the impression that it is missing something. An introduction by Bart Lootsma, a text about the DeepSurface installation, images and text about the main NOX-projects, and an extensive works- and literature overview provide an excellent introduction on the work of Lars Spuybroek. And it even fits in one's breast pocket.

From the publication: Exterior by night and interior of the "New Palace Hotel" at the beach at Noordwijk - from the project "beachness".

Piet Vollaard