Biography:
Mike Rijnierse (Haarlem, 1974) is an artist, inventor and educator working in the fields of light, sound and architecture. He is intrigued by sensory experience, whether visual, acoustic, spatial and synesthetic, creating sculptures, installations, performances and public interventions, exploring intersectional domains. Rijnierse has exhibited his works throughout Europe, Korea, Taiwan, Morocco, The United Arab Emirates and Brazil in various contexts, from media art festivals, to galleries, museums and interventions in the public space. As a docent since 2009 at Design Art Technology department of ArtEZ, Arnhem, Rijnierse has devised the course Design of Instruments, where students research and create instruments that transcend technological domains, exploring new and obsolete media.
Over a decade Rijnierse has developed a meticulous study on the interaction between light, pigment and the retina. He gave concrete form to his discoveries in installations, projections and light designs with the series CYMRGB. These works can be described as optical music or opto-acoustics, by animating colored surfaces in time with composed light projections. His work Lumokinese has been widely exhibited since 2008 and recently being presented alongside masterpieces by László Moholy-Nagy, Dan Flavin, Adam Barker-Mill, Gianni Colombo and others, at Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven (NL).
One of his latest light sculptures, Cube, operates on the kaleidoscopic principle of multiple reflections, by displaying several mirrors at perpendicular angles, forming a cube that is lit from inside. In contrast to the classical kaleidoscope, where light enters the object, Cube embodies light from within and projects its multiplication outwards into the space. Cube is choreographed by an autonomic algorithm that directs the synergy between light and sound, developed in collaboration with artist Rob Bothof.
These works allude to optical instruments and devices such as the Laterna magica, kaleidoscopes and the zoetrope that are considered to be precursors of film, animation and digital media. Mike Rijnierse is not guided by nostalgia, his interest is in questioning the current production of image and examining visual experience, since devices and instruments of today no longer show their process and therefore work as ‘black boxes’. By showing the process of production of light, color, source and shadow, he illustrates how illusion and vision are intertwined.
Besides his exhibitions and individual projects, Mike Rijnierse collaborates with the music theater collective Rosa Ensemble, with whom he has performed since 2001. The most recent production Akasha which premièred in 2016 and was performed in 2017 at the renowned theater deSingel, in Antwerp (BE).
During the kick-off of SHAPE 2017 at festival Novas Frequências in Rio de Janeiro (BR) Mike Rijnierse premièred Relief, an installation based on the principle of echolocation by means of ultrasound. Relief is literally a relief mounted on a wall – not intended primarily as a sculpture to be looked at, rather as a space that is translated in sound, reflection and orientation. Relief is therefore not a sound sculpture, but an echo sculpture. This work was also developed in collaboration with Rob Bothof.
Another facet of Rijnierse’s work are his major interventions in public space. The artist developed the THX: INT’L (landing strip) for TodaysArt festival 2007. In TodaysArt 2008 edition, he developed Station to Station, in collaboration with Staalplaat Soundsystem and Erik Hobijn. In this project the entire railway station of The Hague Central – its building, travelers, trams and trains – were used for a large scale sound performance, with the timetable of the trains and trams serving as the basis of the composition. The train tracks were interpreted as sliders of a sound mixer, while the train station operated its normal schedule. During TodaysArt 2015 Mike Rijnierse presented two works: Klok – a 100kg church bell that was thrown down, every hour from the bungy jump tower of the Pier of Scheveningen. The 60 meters free fall of the bell added a Doppler effect to its tolling sound. With 5,4,3,2,1…Lift-Off, performed in the opening of the festival, a simulated launch of a space rocket, Rijnierse deployed a massive amount of light, sound, smoke and pyrotechnics, executed in coordination with a pool of experts in order to recreate the realistic effect of a rocket launch. In essence, both works, Klok and 5,4,3,2,1…Lift-Off, are related because of their verticality and the Doppler effect represented in a monumental fall and lift-off.
Interview with Régine Debatty (we-make-money-not-art)
Interview with Lucia Udvardyova, SHAPE
ArchiNed on Locating ArtScience