Tag Archives: Amsterdam

Must see (what is seen and what is not seen)

Photobucket


“It’s fascinating to think that all around us there’s an invisible world we can’t even see.”
Jack Handey

Otto Berchem’s work explores how we live and how we communicate our lives with one another. This interest in our social codes, and how we negotiate them, has lead to work that is often created in the public space or in the non-art context. Often these works draw attention to overlooked, unnoticed, and unarticulated systems and social behaviors.

For his third solo exhibition with Ellen de Bruijne Projects, Berchem will present several projects, all connected by subtle interventions used to expose what is seen and what is not seen.

These projects include Temporary Person Passing Through, a project that employed a now defunct hieroglyphic symbols used to map the city; You Am I Am You, a project commissioned by ArtAids, where Berchem produced a special collar for Thai street dogs; and Sanctuary, an ongoing project about a young kidnapping victim.


Opening: 17/10/09 17 – 19 hrs

Exhibition: 17/10/09 – 21/11/09
Gallery hours: Tue – Fri 11 – 18 hrs | Sat 13 – 18 hrs |
1st Sun of the month 14 – 17 hrs

Ellen de Bruijne Projects
Rozengracht 207A,
Amsterdam 1016LZ
NL

Big Brother

Ever since Google Street View was introduced, people have been spotting odd tidbits from daily life, from petty thieves, bike crashes, to questionable choices in underwear.

Seeing as the Netherlands was only added to Street View this past March, I didn’t make much use of it. That changed a few weeks ago, when I found myself checking street view, so I could give an idea of what my new neighborhood is like to friends and family back in the US. There’s a small square in front of my building, and on street view I noticed at a man with a red hat sitting at a table, right in front of my apartment.

I didn’t think much of it at the time, yet after moving in to my new home, it only took 24 hours for me to realize that the man with a red hat is almost as much a part of the square as the picnic table.

Photobucket
Photobucket
Photobucket
Photobucket

Google Street View captures the man with a red baseball cap.

Photobucket

The man with the red baseball cap, captured on digital film, this afternoon.