AURA
Within Without
ANIMA
Eefje de Visser
Iris van Herpen
Resonance Room
Between Mind and Matter
SKYLINE II
AETHER
ESPER
Maarten Vos
SKYLINE
POLARIS
IMAGINARY LIMIT
APERTURE
BJÖRK
AURORA
Lowlands
AETHER II
Charlotte Adigéry & Bolis Popul
Liquid Logic
about

Nick Verstand is a contemporary artist researching human perception through spatial audiovisual compositions. His autonomous installations and live performances investigate the frontier between the material and the immaterial, and are created through collaborative design processes aimed at breaking down social boundaries. The resulting intuitive experiences, co-creations of artist and audience, generate a hypnotizing environment for the subconscious mind.

Nick has exhibited and performed at Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, The Shed (NYC), Museum of Contemporary Art (Shanghai, CHN), National Opera & Ballet (NL), STRP Festival, Design Society (CHN), Paris Couture Week (FR), SXSW (USA), Dekmantel Festival, Art Central Hong Kong, MTV VMAs (NYC), Design Museum Gent (BE), Le Guess Who (NL), Iceland Airwaves (IS), Dutch Design Week and collaborated with artists such as Iris van Herpen, Björk, Lykke Li, Eefje de Visser, Charlotte Adigéry, Doja Cat, Fatima Yamaha and Suzanne Ciani. Dezeen selected his project AURA as one of the top 10 art installations of 2017, alongside Olafur Eliasson, Ai Weiwei and Anish Kapoor.

selected exhibitions & live performances

Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam (NL)

The Shed (NYC)

Paris Couture Week (Paris, FR)

Dekmantel (NL)

SXSW (Austin, USA)

Barbican (London, UK)

Art Central Hong Kong (CHN)

MTV VMAs (NYC)

Design Museum Gent (BE)

Lowlands Festival (NL)

Dutch Design Week (NL)

Design Society (Shenzhen, CHN)

Le Guess Who (NL)

Iceland Airwaves (Reykjavik, ISL)

MIRA Festival (Barcelona, ES)

STRP (NL)

Nuit Blanche (Paris, FR)

EYE Film Museum (NL)

De School (NL)

Nieuw Dakota Gallery (NL)

Concertgebouw (NL)

FRAME Lab (NL)

Sandberg Institute (NL)

Lehrter Siebzehn Gallery (Berlin, DE)

FORMS (Toronto, CAN)

De Nieuwe Kerk (NL)

TEDx (NL)

Van Gogh Museum (NL)

Gabriel Rolt Gallery (NL)

Amsterdam Dance Event (NL)

REC Festival (NL)

Trouw (NL)

Bimhuis (NL)

 

selected awards

Dutch Design Award - finalist

Elisabeth van Thüringenprijs - winner

Lumen Prize - category 3D/Sculpture - finalist

HKU Award Entrepreneurship - winner

 

strategy and website design

Agency Agency

 

selected collaborations

Iris van Herpen

Björk

Lykke Li

Charlotte Adigéry

Eefje de Visser

Suzanne Ciani

Doja Cat

Fatima Yamaha

Tale of Us

 

selected publications

Dezeen

Victoria & Albert Museum

FRAME Magazine

Resident Advisor

Elephant

Design Society

Mister Motley

BBC Radio

NRC

Volkskrant

3voor12

The Chicago Tribune

Creators Project

Engadget

Trendtablet

National Post

 

selected presentations

SXSW  - Linking Art & Science Through Technology

Netherlands Film Festival - Visualising Beyond The Mind

TENT Rotterdam - Collaborative Art Practices

Fiber Festival - EEG Interfaces In Contemporary Art

MTA Beijing - Discovering Interfaces Between Art, Technology and Sound

MU Artspace - Materialising The Internet

FORMS Toronto - AI In Art Is Metaphor

RTL Late Night - Muziek Maken Met Je Emoties 

HKU - Realising Multidisciplinary Art Projects

Blink YoungBlood Award - head of jury

Amsterdam Dance Event - Sound Lab

Pakhuis de Zwijger

AURA (2017) is an audiovisual installation that materialises emotions into a perceptible, physical form. The audience' own emotional experience manifests as organic, pulsing light compositions of various form, colour and intensity. The installation visually tributes to the Solid Light Works by artist Anthony McCall, further exploring light as a medium.

The transformation of emotions into light is accomplished by a scientific system, developed in collaboration with the Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research. Using multiple wearable biosensors, the system registers brainwaves, heart-rate variability, and galvanic skin response. From the sensors, emotional “data” is analysed and metamorphosed into its symbolic representation as light. The differences in individuals’ emotional responses, being influenced by a musical composition, become visible to all who are present.

AURA explores how this perceptual process influences the understanding of ourselves and of each other. The installation symbolises the materialisation of (internal) metaphysical space into (external) physical space. 

medium
biosensors, RGB lasers, hazer, 8.1 speaker system

created by
Nick Verstand
Salvador Breed

commissioned by 
VPRO Medialab

in collaboration with
TNO
EagleScience
Poul Holleman