Curran Prospect

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We’re running out of oil. Oil scarcity will soon become a worldwide problem. In a future with green cars oil turns into a product of luxury. Oil cars will be expensive, not suitable for everyone, and therefore elitist. French luxury cars brands like the Peugeot 407 and Citroën 6 are not available to for instance U.S. buyers because of a simple reason: they produce diesel-engine vehicles, which haven’t caught on with U.S. car buyers. Norway has had only 8 brands of cars, of which only two still exist, producing small electric automobiles.
In november 2008, The Petroleum Safety Authority of Norway has given StatoilHydro the go-ahead to conduct exploration drilling on the North Pole. The site could contain between 3.1 and 15.7 million barrels, according the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate. In addition StatoilHydro, which holds 50%, the project includes the Norwegian Petoro (40%) and French Total (10%).The new deposit is located on the prospect Curran, 7 km south of the one already in operation, Tune, which should reduce development costs.

Oil and car companies together can prepare for a luxury oil car market. France, which has proved influential concerning it’s replenishing luxury and industry markets – but is in need for luxury petroleum cars – must cooperate with Norway, which has a lack of car industry, but a great amount of oil.

Curran Prospect

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Confidential Business Transaction

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An advance-fee fraud is a confidence trick in which the target is persuaded to advance sums of money in the hope of realizing a significantly larger gain. Among the variations on this type of scam, are the Nigerian Letter (also called the 419 fraud, Nigerian scam, Nigerian bank scam, or Nigerian money offer), the Spanish Prisoner, the Black money scam as well as Russian/Ukrainian scam (also extremely widespread, though far less popular than the former). Both the so-called Russian and Nigerian scams stand for wholly dissimilar organised crime traditions, they therefore tend to use altogether different breeds of approaches.

Confidential Business Transaction

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I've Probably Been There Once Already

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After working on themes like globalization, quilts and travelling (see Werkplaats (Workshop)) I wanted to rethink these subjects on a more personal level. This resulted in a zine on modern travelling. What this is, I tried to discover in this small publication by comparing it to globalization, migration, trade and culture. It starts with an interview with the 19 year old model Virginia Slaghekke, and contains furthermore only letters in different kind of forms from and to the model, who is a close friend of mine.

I've Probably Been There Once Already

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Obama Today

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Everybody is analyzing Barack Obama’s historic win over John McCain and a lot of smart people have come to the conclusion that Obama’s use of new media was key to his win.

Twice a week Barack Obama, or someone else of his campaign staff, sends an email to subscribers. The contents of these emails are not that important, but the reminder of gratitude, responsibility, 'the team', change and missions are very present and obvious. These are sketches for a calendar and an agenda in which the dates are replaced by sentences of his emails. This way a new way of experiencing time and rythm is created. All texts, images, and colours are generated by a self written managing system.

Obama Today

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Library Index

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Since libraries are threatened by new media and digital information, I wanted to research the fysical contents of a library.

It resulted in an index of the most used themes of the ArtEZ Academy for Arts and Design Mediatheque of the past 6 decades. It shows the main interests of the library of a certain time.

Library Index

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Gratitude (Another Library)

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East Timor, also known as Timor-Leste (officially the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste) is a country in Southeast Asia. A brief civil war occurred in 1975. Indonesia alleged that the East Timorese FRETILIN party, which received some vocal support from the People's Republic of China, was communist.

The UN Security Council had a unanimous vote for Indonesia to stop its invasion and to withdraw immediately from East Timor’s borders, and was blocked by the United States from imposing any economic sanctions or other means of enforcing this mandate.

Following a UN-sponsored agreement between Indonesia, Portugal and the United States and a surprise decision by the Indonesian President B. J. Habibie, a UN-supervised popular referendum was held on August 30, 1999 to choose between Special Autonomy within Indonesia and independence. 78.5% of voters chose independence, but violent clashes, instigated primarily by elements within the Indonesian military and aided by Timorese pro-Indonesia militias led by Eurico Guterres, broke out soon afterwards. A peacekeeping force (INTERFET, led by Australia) intervened to restore order.

The Australian Tom Nicholson works with the project Another Library on a program of books, education and vademecums for East-Timor. The project can be seen as charity, but also a layer of arrogance is noticeable. After several After Action for Another Library a publication on Nicholson himself seem to be apropriate.

The publication is a gratitude to everyone who made possible his Another Library projects. It forms an endless list of generated and real names and photos of curators, critics, artists, but also policticians, INTERFET soldiers and East-Timorese citizens.

The folding refers to the flag of East-Timor.

Gratitude (Another Library)

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Study Agenda

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Every year ArtEZ Academy for Arts and Design publishes a study guide/agenda for all of its students and employees. This publication is always designed by one of the students Graphic Design. My proposal for the publication was based of the student protests that were held a few weeks before the design. This protest was against the total merge of three large Art and Design academies in the Netherlands, which were already working together on some things. I wanted to creat one structure which could be used in three ways, referring to the merge. I drew two lines on every page, which splits the spread in three pieces. These lines create the columns of the reading text, the division in the three academies in the photogallery, and a structure for the agenda, which should also be incorporated in the design. The publication is bilingual. Titles of works of students (in red) disturb the structures. The images show work of students, referring to protests by the way it is photographed. The guide appears in three colours, also the images. Together they make a (distorted) full colour image as shown.

Study Agenda

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Paper Machine

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Jacques Derrida (15 July 1930 – 8 October 2004) was a French philosopher born in Algeria, who is known as the founder of deconstruction. His voluminous work had a profound impact upon literary theory and continental philosophy.

The book Paper Machine questions the book itself, archivization, machines for writing, and the mechanicity inherent in language, the media, and intellectuals. Derrida questions what takes place between the paper and the machine inscribing it. He examines what becomes of the archive when the world of paper is subsumed in new machines for virtualization, and whether there can be a virtual event or a virtual archive.

Derrida continues his long-standing investigation of these issues, and ties them into the new themes that governed his teaching and thinking in the past few years: the secret, pardon, perjury, state sovereignty, hospitality, the university, animal rights, capital punishment, the question of what sort of mediatized world is replacing the print epoch, and the question of the “wholly other.” Derrida is remarkable at making seemingly occasional pieces into part of a complexly interconnected trajectory of thought.

Since Derrida questions what happens between the machine and the paper, this publication is based on transfer, cession, and delivery between us, eight designers. There was formed a chain of designers in which every one had only one chance to to with it what he of she wanted. After finishing working on it for one day, the design was passed trough. This chain can be considered the machine. Every designer tries to interpret the text in its own way, and shows that by adding the layout of the text, but also the content. It results in eight texts, which are all very different to read.

Paper Machine

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Image Institute

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The Image Institute is a fictive institute for image, art and culture, based in Arnhem. It works from a tiny space in the centre of the city, and was in need of a low budget visual identity.

This visual identity is an envelope, basic letterhead, invitition, business card and ehibition poster at once. It consists of 4 a4s. The exhibition is about facts and fiction, within propaganda of upcoming (mostly right wing) political parties.

Image Institute

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World Space Week

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World Space Week is an annual observance held from October 4 to October 10 established by the United Nations General Assembly to be an international celebration of science and technology and their contribution to the betterment of the human condition. World Space Week is coordinated by the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs with the support of World Space Week Association, a non-government organization.

In 2008, the theme for World Space Week will be "Exploring the Universe."In 2009, the theme will be "Space for Education."

A Fragment of Russian documentary about interplanetary emigration and human expansion. video is part of the series 'survival of the fittest - science and society' of the Educational Video Programme of the United Nations in collaboration with World Space Week.

It shows an amazing Russian new plan in which they not only think of claiming parts of our home planet Earth (like the North Pole), but also intergalactic spheres, to divide the universe politically, even before we are able to live in space. [fictional]

World Space Week

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Le Contour

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Social networking siet A Small World (ASW) calls itself an international community of cultural important people. ASW offers its members a platform for shearing information, making part of dialogue, and looking for social chances and business partners.

In fact, the website is a high-class community for which people can only be invited. The American website shows mostly European cultural events and arts, but offers no profundity. Despite the desription earlier, the website is generally used for describing favorite hotels, restaurants and favorite VIP friends.

LeContour is a publication, with only contents of ASW itself. It's a proposal for an American nationalistic magazine with generally Eurpeon influences. The magazine only shows itself, and offers mostly useless information. LeContour is trhe physique equivalent of the website, to show the marginal comments.

Le Contour

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Lost and Found Project

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The lost and found project is composed of two elements: an experiment and a reader. The experiment was a 350 page book containing unfinished work from fellow students. The work was gathered from the copy machines, printers, intranet, lost usb-sticks, photos from social networking websites etc. The book was displayed in the hallway of school, and page were able to be easily removed.

The reader deals with the results of the experiment, and other writing about losts and finds.

Lost and Found Project

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A Room of One's Own

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A Room of One's Own is an extended essay by Virginia Woolf. First published during 24 October 1929, it was based on a series of lectures she delivered at Newnham College and Girton College, two women's colleges at Cambridge University in 1928.
The essay examines whether women were capable of producing work of the quality of William Shakespeare, amongst other topics. In one section, Woolf invented a fictional character Judith "Shakespeare's Sister", to illustrate that a woman with Shakespeare's gifts would have been denied the same opportunities to develop them because of the doors that were closed to women. Woolf also examines the careers of several female authors, including Aphra Behn, Jane Austen, the Brontë sisters and George Eliot. The author subtly refers to several of the most prominent intellectuals of the time.

The essay is set in two default mac letters, referring to conditions of a designer, as Woolf talks about conditions of a woman in her time. The cover shows a black triangle, which is the symbol of feminism. The middle page shows a portrait of George Elliot, one of Woolfs examples. Together they make the initials V.W, Virginia Woolf

A Room of One's Own

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Werkplaats (Workshop)

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The Werklaats Workshop is an open en free workshop in the course of the typography lessons. Every week new work should be made and discussed.

During the workshop I decided to work with the idea of vernacular, and later quilts, corporate identities and globalization.

Werkplaats (Workshop)

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Rechtszaak

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GeenStijl.nl is a Dutch blog founded in April 2003. Its trademark images are that of a female silhouette utilizing a chainsaw and that of a crown within a circle, both in a pinkish colour, although the crown in a circle is green with a black edge when it is embedded in online videos.

The situation of the conflict between right wing citizens and left wing politics is the exact opposite of the situation in the eighties: between CDA and the squatters.

This poster compares these situations by using each others visual language. One side says 'Zaak van man en paard' which means something like 'matter of openness and honesty'. The other side says 'Rechts gaat voor, geef het door' which is a dutch rhyme on traffic, meaning right has priority. Together the texts make the word 'rechtszaak', which means lawsuit.

Rechtszaak

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Obama Brand

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A thunderstorm of positivity has showered the world with optimism since Obama’s election for president, and thankfully he realizes that this is an ideal opportunity to further extend that good publicity. Suddenly government seems a lot more interested in finding ways to help people and connect with their needs. Obama’s support of Change.org is a perfect example of that. It contains news on issues, ways to organize around causes, and enables visitors to send in their ideas on implementing change.

This pair of videos (posted on YouTube) try to use the downsides of web2.0 within publicity. Faked video mistakes create a new message, with an existing video. First video doesn't show Obama at all, because it stagnates. Second mirrors the debate between Biden and Palin, so that they discuss with theirselves.

Obama Brand

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In the Waste of the Uebermensch

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Jake Chapman (born 1966) and Dinos Chapman (born 1962) are brothers and English conceptual artists, known as the Chapman Brothers, who work almost exclusively in collaboration with each other. They came to prominence as part of the Young British Artists movement promoted by Charles Saatchi.

Behind the shocking appearance on the surface, however, there is an intense engagement with themes of humanity and moral behaviour like humankind's capacity for violence, barbarism and war.

In the Waste of the Uebermensch

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Idioterne

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The Idiots (Danish: Idioterne) is a 1998 Danish film directed by Lars von Trier. It is his first film made in compliance with the Dogme '95 Manifesto, and is also known as Dogme #2. Dogme '95 is an avant-garde filmmaking movement started in 1995.

The goal of the Dogme collective is to purify filmmaking by refusing expensive and spectacular special effects, postproduction modifications and other gimmicks. One of the rules was that the camera must be a hand-held camera. Any movement or immobility attainable in the hand is permitted.

Idioterne

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Eliza

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ELIZA is a computer program by Joseph Weizenbaum, designed in 1966, which parodied a Rogerian therapist, largely by rephrasing many of the patient's statements as questions and posing them to the patient. Thus, for example, the response to "My head hurts" might be "Why do you say your head hurts?" The response to "My mother hates me" might be "Who else in your family hates you?" ELIZA was named after Eliza Doolittle, a working-class character in George Bernard Shaw's play Pygmalion, who is taught to speak with an upper class accent.

This is a physical version of the robot, which can be easily used by human beings. It shows the value of the words mentioned and generates a suiting answer.

Eliza

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Intervention in the Public Space

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The Spijkerkwartier in Arnhem originally was a alluring part of the city. Most buildings have an eclectic or neo-classicistic character. The quarter - which became a red light district in the last decades - was cleared recently, and tries to upgrade itself by means of gentrification.

This intervention takes place on the facade of a building which used to be a brothel. The boards, which refer to the ones opf real estate agents, say 'love' at one side, and 'for sale' on the other side. This relate to the brothels, but to the gentrification as well.

Intervention in the Public Space

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Checkpoint

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Checkpoint is an American novel written by Nicholson Baker in 2004. The main characters are two men, Jay and Ben. The novel consists of their dialogues in a hotel room in Washington, D.C., in May 2004. The story begins with Jay asking Ben to go to his hotel room; from that conversation it is inferred that Jay is depressed — his wife left him, his girlfriend left him, he has lost his high-school teacher job and works as a day labourer; has declared himself bankrupt; and spends his days reading blogs.
Jay explains to Ben that he has decided he must, "for the good of humankind", assassinate President George W. Bush, and then kill himself. Ben symbolises American modern liberalism, and spends his time trying to persuade Jay to cancel his "mission".
The novel ends inconclusively, the reader ignorant of whether or not Jay is going to assassinate the President and then kill himself.

In this publication, set as a transcript, the main characters are replaced by Baker and Bush. This way, they dialogue directly. 4 Parts of the issue contain different experiments. The first holds a political poster, the second portraits mentioned politicians, the third zooms in on critical sentences, the fourth is transcribed by voice.

Checkpoint

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