Solo exhibition at Museum Folkwang

Color, Code, Communication
Curated by Thomas Seelig

Opening: April 20 at 19:00
Live performance by Legowelt 23:00 at Goethe Bunker

The exhibition consists of various manifestations of immaterial art (projections, screens, murals, instructions, books, happenings, music). My work will also be exhibited at the Josef Albers Museum in Bottrop.

April 21-22: NFT symposium at Museum Folkwang

RAFAËL ROZENDAAL
Color, Code, Communication
Rafaël Rozendaal is one of the world’s best-known digital artists. Already in the early 2000s, he created, presented, and sold works in the form of websites. In his current NFT projects, he also creates references to art history, using generative technologies on the blockchain. Rozendaal’s works exist in multiple forms and locations: as immersive installations, in browser windows, as artist books, and in public spaces. Color, Code, Communication is the first major monographic NFT exhibition in a European museum and is accompanied by a symposium.

 

what should art be?

a fire?
a door?
a mystery?
an example?
a lightning rod?
a lifestyle?
a religion?
a waterfall?
a storm?

 

my new nft portal: newrafael.work

newrafael.work is my new nft portal.
My own place to deploy my work. Frequent releases, smaller series, having fun. Fun is important.

The code of the works is stored on-chain. Short form generative art. Surprise minting. Built with Artblocks Engine. Code (website & artworks) by Reinier Feijen. All javascript, no external libraries.

I’ve always believed in continuous creativity.

 

RR NFT (2021 – 2022) walkthrough video

45 minutes of browsing & talking, turn sound up!

 

Screen Time at TSCA Tokyo

Rafaël Rozendaal – Screen Time
26 November – 24 December, 2022
Takuro Someya Contemporary Art

Photos by Shu Nakagawa

Screen Time comprises two ongoing series of works: Into Time, a series of lenticular paintings, and Abstract Browsing, a series of jacquard tapestries.

As hinted by the title of this exhibition, both Into Time and Abstract Browsing are explorations into the nature of time in its various forms.

Rozendaal has remarked in interviews and writings that the “landscapes” we most often encounter in our contemporary society are seen through the “window” of a screen on our electronic devices rather than an actual window in space. In the context of the history of humans and landscapes, we have shifted from the time when people looked out into the world through physical windows to the time when families gathered around the television set to watch moving images. And now, in this present moment, we have grown accustomed to spending our time on the individual screens of our personal devices, consuming our favorite content when and where we please. If one were to name these different periods on the basis of their visual cultures, perhaps “screen time” would be a fitting one for this most recent iteration. As the title of this exhibition, Screen Time evokes the expanse of time in which the continuum of visual culture is developing.

For artists attempting to face the questions posed by our contemporary aesthetics, Rozendaal has long been a pioneering figure. Abstract Browsing is a series of jacquard tapestries based on images of abstracted websites, which are created by “abstract browsing.net,” a browser plug-in developed by the artist in 2014. The tool, available for free on Google Chrome, abstracts all information present on a webpage into geometric units of bright colors. Rozendaal runs this program daily on well-known websites ranging from newspapers to real estate listings, generating thousands of images. From those, he selects compositions that appear striking or unusual in some way to create as paintings through the medium of jacquard weaving. The jacquard loom is an early prototype of the computer; as such, the textile it produces can be understood as both a digital image and a mechanically produced material. With this choice of medium, Rozendaal draws out the connection between digital images and traditional manufacturing techniques to highlight that, far from being a new media, the “digital” has a long history.

The new tapestries presented in this exhibition are all the same width but vary in height, with some of the tallest approaching three meters. Their exaggerated dimensions recall the vertical format of scrolling through the web on our phones. In this way, these works emphasize the shared verticality of web browsers and the weaving process, in which the fabric takes shape one row at a time. In recent years, however, it has also become possible to take screenshots of entire web pages. Unlike the experience of scrolling and taking in text and information slowly, the screenshot transforms the website into an image that can be seen in its entirety in a much shorter span of time. This is also in stark contrast to the slow unfolding of time that is inherent to the process of creating a tapestry. In these ways, the various textures of time that exist within the screen as a tapestry and among the many other screens that make up our daily lives are interwoven into the tapestries presented here.

Into Time is a series of lenticular paintings that departs from the traditional concept of painting in that they cannot be experienced instantaneously but must be seen over a duration of time. Some of the works in this series are based on the geometric patterns and color gradations generated through Rozendaal’s website works, intotime.us, intotime.com, and intotime.org.

Rozendaal’s lenticular paintings contain time within them, and as such, it is only by moving our bodies around these works that we can experience them in their entirety. The surface of a lenticular painting functions similarly to that of a screen such as an RGB monitor or an image cast by a projector. But whereas monitors and projectors are media that display images standing in for physical “landscapes” as they change to and fro, the nature of the lenticular medium is such that it becomes the shifting image itself. And just as an actual landscape contains an infinity of views that depend on the position of the viewer, so too does the lenticular. The new lenticular paintings presented in Screen Time reflect the ongoing development of Rozendaal’s sense of colors and their combinations.

Both the jacquard tapestry and the lenticular print are materials with long histories. By selecting them as his media, Rozendaal draws our attention to the largely unknown connection between such traditional techniques and the digital devices and technologies with which he makes images, enabling us to understand these seemingly disjointed elements as points along the continuum of our visual culture. This exhibition, and Rozendaal’s artistic practice as a whole, hints at the diversity of time in its many forms. The expanded scale of Rozendaal’s newest work draws us into a new moment following the many disruptions brought about by the pandemic as well as the rise of NFTs, allowing us again to enjoy the experience of standing before a physical work and letting the time pass us by.

 

RR haiku 284

trying

not to think

about money

 

RR haiku 283

this one?

that one?

no the other one

 

RR haiku 282

no more problems

not one

ever again

 

Intersections

Intersections NFT collection now open

 

Self Promotion

i made something, you should see it!

it is great because

– it represents the core of my being
– i worked on it for a long time
– i did a lot of research
– it will go up in value
– it will make the world a better place
– famous people love it
– i am aware of art history

 

Cabinets

Cabinets NFT series
generative – onchain – indie

 

Fear of Emptiness

empty pockets
empty phrases
empty gestures
empty calories
empty stomach
empty vessel
empty promise
empty threat
empty house
empty hard drive
empty fridge
empty wallet
empty table
empty bed
empty horizon
empty nester
empty page
empty time
empty mind

 

Polychrome Music

Polychrome Music

A generative project by Rafaël Rozendaal and Danny Wolfers (Legowelt)

Wednesday, August 24, 1PM EST on Artblocks

Legowelt: For Polychrome Music I designed a generative music system that plays an infinite composition on 3 different audio channels, each with their own synthesizer. These randomly generate simple musical timbres inspired by early computer sound chips. The music itself is generated by randomly selecting 3 patterns out of a pool of 180. These patterns, which are little 8-bar music pieces, were written in the same C# Dorian scale so they always fit together. This is a pleasant sounding minor and colorful scale that I believe fits the general vibe of Rafaël’s work. Composition wise, channel 1 plays the bassline and channels 2 and 3 the melody, countermelody, arpeggios and harmonies. The system changes the patterns each time they are played, reversing, speeding up or slowing down the pattern or changing the synthesizer channel they are played on. In essence the system infinitely randomly remixes the source melodies to create ever new surprising pieces that harmonize with the colorful compositions.

 

Doors

 

Abstract Browsing 22 01 series

 

Homage collection

Brand new custom NFT project.

 

Art & The Rest

In the Before Times, art and culture were clearly separated by museum walls. Within those museum walls, artists kept asking what art is. Is this art? How about this? And this? As long as it happened inside those walls, the answer was always yes.

Now that art has to operate on the same screen as everybody else, the contextual privilege disappears. If you cover a museum wall with peanut butter, it’s art. But what if you do the same thing on Youtube?

Art is something different. There is culture, there is entertainment, and somewhere outside of that is art. Is that true? Is art different? Is art better?

Does art transcend the crowded realm of decoration and entertainment? Does art last longer? Does art show us our true selves? Does art break convention? When culture breaks convention, is it art?

When writing is exceptional, does it become art? When cooking is exceptional, does it become art? Can breathing be art?

Is art only that what is shown in museums? Does the word art mean anything? I’d like to believe there is something valuable that separates art from the rest but I’m not so sure.

 

The independent artist

free from expectation
free from distraction
free from approval
free from convention
free from obligation
free from utility
free from compromise
free from agreement
free from competition
free from hierarchy
free from fear

 

81 Horizons

81 Horizons is a collection of 81 fully on-chain landscapes. Each work consists of a unique combination of two colored rectangles, hand picked by the artist. Released by Upstream Gallery, smart contract programming by Alberto Granzotto, produced by left gallery.

 

Possession

I don’t really understand the impulse to own art. I love empty spaces. I love being in an empty space. It is the most inspiring to me because there is nothing else to do except finding new ideas. Ownership is a prison of obligations. But I need your money so I can make whatever I want. Because you want to own I can create. I don’t judge your cravings, I am happy that you take on the burden of storage. Take it out of my hands so I can make something new.

Please take care of the work and give me some money so I can buy soba noodles and get back to work. Money makes me happy. Lots of money and few things. Money in the bank makes me feel free. I realize i’m not free at all. The more money I have the poorer I feel. The more there is to lose. I made good money this year, more than I ever have. I have no idea what to do with it other than to keep it in a jar and feed it. The money makes me feel safe yet i’m not.