.artist talk
Lonneke Gordijn & Ralph Nauta /
STUDIO DRIFT
speaks with
Tagen Donovan

first published in (read full interview in print only)
Issue Nr. 32, 01/2022

Through the extensive exploration of interactive performances and engaging installations, the core of DRIFT revolves around the individual, as well as the collective. Each output has a function that allows the viewer to examine and confront the future of humankind. Engaging the participant within the work, establishing a space for critical thinking, as well as providing a genuine connection to the individual. Grounding an experiential element that in turn creates a tangible component to the work itself. Orchestrating realistic scenarios in a world dominated by technological systems, where human input has merely become a secondary consideration. Gordijn and Nauta both strive to educate their audiences, while posing abstract questions that typically concern the future of Earth, global communities and the evolution of humankind’s relationship with nature.

Exploring positive scenarios that could become standard in the future. DRIFT works simultaneously to alleviate the deepening anxiety posed by the loss of our connection to nature. As part of this push to question and situate theologically positioned questions, DRIFT processes relative research within their very own ecosystem of collaboration.

Bringing together an extensive team of researchers, programmers, artists, and architects to form an integrated network. DRIFT consolidates itself into a system that extends beyond its own oeuvre, provoking our collective apprehension of rapid technological advancements and mankind's inherent evolution. Nauta and Gordijn present a pathway that explores alternatives among the deepening echoes of a collective existentialist state.

With their first project, Fragile Future, the pair foreshadowed what would become an iconic series of light sculptures consisting of dandelion heads, individually applied to LED lights - garnering international acclaim. Evolving over time from a single concept into a system that could be co-arranged in various ways to meet the needs of a specific project or environment. The positioning, and securing of dandelion seeds to the LEDs warrants for an extremely labour-intensive and time-consuming process. Resulting in a stark contrast between high-level workmanship and factory-led mass-production methods of recent years, in essence symbolising the current system for economic growth that has been assimilated into our day-to-day lives. A utopian glimpse at our future can be seen in Fragile Future; the forces of two seemingly opposing worlds are brought together for survival, despite their intrinsically incompatible natures.