A day in Amsterdam

8:01 AM



11:36 PM

One block radius!

1. The building next to my house
2. The Neighbour
3. More to come!

Zuidas

But more important...I almost finished my "Scriptie"!

Say what?!

That dude in the picture is me (.....)

Iets dat ik zal gaan missen....

The road to AKI!

3 days left.... (for my thesis)

Like any good Novel, my last few weeks of studying have multiple storylines. While I have three days left for my thesis (climax soon) I have been working on some other projects as well - like the office (tommorow the first pictures) and Iniana Jones (This one has a little less priority). But I've also been going trough my archive to look at old work.

I decided to send all the photos from three major trips from last year (Paris, Crete and Belgium) to the local cheap photostore. Just as an experiment. Since im trying to get an overview of my work, so i can select something for the exhibition, i thought it might just be nice to have something physical to work with.
I ended up with an innocent looking package today:



But for me, even an innocent package like this can turn out to be a complete bom explosion.
I enthousiastcly started unpacking in my room - and randomly organising some of the images.



Well - its not too bad actually. But having 400+ images in your hand can be quiet overwhelming. Its like having a gigantic Jigsaw Puzzle to solve! It all of the sudden reminded me of a co-student from a couple of years ago. His name was Afong, and (just like mister NY arseni) took endless pictures of his daily life. He had EVERYTHING printed digtally, that resulted in a huge archrive from 5 years of shooting images everyday. I remember he confiscated the hallway in the AKI, and had just random piles of photographs everywhere. You can see it a little bit over here, but im pretty sure he had over 10.000 images there.



He went crazy. He had to make a selection for his final show, but he couldnt do it. We had long talks, and as you can see on this picture he occasionally asked other students to help him. However, I was convinced he should do something with the fact he has so much. It said so much about how we use photography today. At the end however, he choose 6 pictures.
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6 pictures out of 10.000! It turned out to be very boring.....

But now, being in the same situation as Afong (only with a little less then ten thousand pictures) I realise how hard it is to overcome this step. These days its not about the pictures itself, but the context we place em in - the curation - and the way we present the images. Im trying to overcome the "picture, picture" trap. Im not happy with the idea of choosing my top 10, and frame them nicely for the end expo.

Photography can be so much more these days, but I dont really know what it can be....yet

Wednesday (Indiana Jones project idea preview)

Today at the AKI...

En er was....

Things i've been doing in the last week

- Went to an Artist talk of Paul Graham at the FOAM in Amsterdam. Pretty interesting to see his show again (saw it in NY last year) The talk was O.K - not super special. I think he had a hangover...at least he acted like it.

- Guess who else had a hangover. Mr. did-not-Graduate-yet spent almost 24 hours partying from Wedensday night till Saturday night. He feels very responsible. But yeah: the excuse: almost 12 of those hours were spend dancing on Dubstep (my favourite music!!!) wich gives me the feeling i've been working out !!There were three partys that I attended to (Since it was holliday and such)- with the green vibrations festival as the longest one (14 hours! wtf....)

- Dieing from muscle ace, while carefully nodding my head on dubstep during the writing of my thesis. Or atleast my attempt to...

- Photographing at the South Axis in Amsterdam. It went super bad (Yeah how would that come.....) But it gave me inspiration for 2 new STAGED photographs. Oh my god,....Still in doubt how to execute those!

- Stressing out about my thesis a bit more.... Who can write with a hangover anyway?!!

- Seriously thinking about my graduation as well. Ive been printing lots of pictures (400 other small ones to come) to have a good overview of what i did last year. From there i'm selecting, and thinking about possabiltys of my grad show.

- Hanging out Backstage with the DJs....

- Making a little book about Indiana Jones & my trip to Crete last year. They are related in a great way. I hope to share something about this project soon.

- Trying to learn some classic compositions of Eric Satie on the Piano.... With Youtube as my teacher.

- Stressing out a bit more!

Jolien working on her massive new drawing. Too bad my cellphone does'nt pick up all those fine details!! (I need a digital camera for real!)

And also Tanja is puzzeling...

34 days left...

Trying to make things work...

Still 39 left!

The F word for my thesis! Im going to work on a little book project for a bit. Its about me on a horse, a videogame addiction, A greek digside, Indiana Jones with sandals, tourists in yellow and whatever more....

Ill explain it later...

Remake? (You got like, 39 days left... so why not?)

I have the feeling to re-do this photograph for some time now.
I got this mounted on alluminium, and its hanging in my room (its huge!), It costed me a lot of money already..... but somehow Im not so comfortable with it anymore.

I had the image, someone stopped by a puddle of watter, in my head for over three years. I remember sitting in the bus, as I noticed a person at the bus stop, who wanted to step on the sidewalk, but was stopped by a big puddle of water. It was just a split second before he tried jumping over it - but somehow the whole scene had made a huge impact on me. So dramatic! We let our daily action stop for a moment because of some water! I thought about the image a lot, but it wasnt until Vancouver that I did this image.

However, the original atmosphere - outside parking, daylight - would probaby contribute more to the fact that the puddle is actually just water. Now there is some ambiguity over the puddle (it could be an oil leak or other car fluid) that pushes the image in the total wrong direction. Also the car is a bit to new and shiny - that people actually saw this more as an advertisment for Volkswagen, then something else. Also the parking lot has some eery, gloomy atmosphere - that I like - but I wanted something more depressing and mundane,....And finally, as a guest teacher stated last week - the pose, and thus the action, wasn't as familiar to a daily life situation as the guy with the broken pencil. Even though I find myself walking with great concentration when there are big puddles of water everywhere...

I dont know If it would help to redo this image (I redid the girl with the curtain THREE times, and im still not happy with it) But I still have 39 left (counting from tommorow). So now the question arises...Why not? But also... Why? it feels so useless !

EDIT: After writing this, I looked at the picture again - and I decided that I WILL redo this. Even if its only for myself. Call me crazy (please do, all good artist are) but I will figure out a way to make this image work.

Some postcard I found at the Tate

40 days.

"The main reason that artists don't willingly describe or explain what they produce is, however, that the minute they do so they' ve admitted failure . Words are proof that the vision they had is not, in the opinion of some at least, fully there in the picture. Characterizing in words that they thought they'd shown is an acknowledgment that the photograph is unclear - that its not art."

Robert Adams, Why People Photograph (pag 33.)

Overcast skies

Back to the Office (44 days)

After weeks of enmail conversations, I finally found an office where I'm allowed to to photograph. "Hurray" I thought!

So Yesterday I had a tour for over an hour trough all four towers of the UWV Office in Hengelo.
It confirmed all my cliche's. Offices ARE very boring. I left the building very depressed.
The towers had just endless rows of desks with people working on it (yah .....duh). What a life...

I was a little concerned though, because some cliches werent confirmed. The workers were not dressed formally, and the office didnt look like a very organized one (Visually). Posters, magazines and little decorations everywhere. It made the whole thing even more unsofisticated and uninteresting in a visual way. No suits, no ties - but this was just probably the wrong office for that. Also more then half of the building was empty. There were some floors were only 2 people were working in a gigantic empty space. This could shake things up a little, and hopefully give me some positive and more detailed idea about the current state of corporate life. Things ARE going bad.

Anyway, I'm planning to spend some time next week capturing all this depression on camera :)

BUT FIRST I have to finish that damn thesis

Thesis, Theziz..Thezzzz (45 Days)

Ive been writing my end thesis (scriptie) in the past few days - and I should hurry up. The deadline was more then a week ago....(aahR!!) Im spending the days in my room, staring at a screen - not even typing, because I keep on thinking "This is a waste of time! Its boring! I feel like 15!". How Immature of me right?. I should just finish the damn thing and be done with it!

FC Twente is the Champion! (46 days till graduation...)

Imagine every person in this picture is holding a glass of beer.

And then their favourite football club scores (and is champion of the Netherlands)

I was somewhere in this picture, taking in all the beer showers. And jumping around like crazy just as the rest. Because everybody just had to! I never experienced more excitement and crazyiness in Enschede then this moment.The whole city was one big party. We were all coverd in beer, rain ,dirt, and confettit. People were parking on the national highway to welcome the football players back home. What a positive energy :) Now its Monday, and everybody is still partying.... pfff. What do you mean; distraction from graduation...

Hank - A Masterpiece the world isn't ready for (yet)

A stunning work of art captured with my crappy phone

Meet Hank, a handsome smiley man, probably somehere in his 40s. I think he is famous, but I'm not really sure. He could be a TV-Anchor, or maybe a gameshow host. It doesnt matter. Hank is the first painting I ever bought, and also the best piece of Art is ever bought. And..like all good art, it started quiet a buzz when I got this.

So let me first tell you how we met. There is a factory where the once so glorious Polaroid was made, that is now a gigantic flea Market. The flea market is a story itself. Not only does it contain the most useless objects you'll ever see together (from Jetski's to second hand underwear), it also has a hairsalon, a snackbar, Shoarma corner and coffeebar.This market is really something, lets put it that way. But lets focus on the real story here. Not the flea market.

Last summer I was visiting the flea market, together with Amanda from Vancouver, and next to an old dusty drawer and a box full of second hand porn, we saw him!

Hank; 40 Cms tall, handsomely mounted on cardboard with a plastic white frame around it. His smile, his Eyes, his hair!- it was love at first sight.

I looked at Amanda, and she nodded. We had to get this. I asked the salesman what he wanted for this magnificent painting. The salesman looked at me if I was crazy, but is probably still regretting it that he let go of this masterpiece for 3 euro 50.


Amanda (left) and Hank (right) having icecream after our bike trip trough Enschede

So, we decided to show Hank some of Enschede before we went home. We took a little bike trip trough Roombeek, had Icecream and went out for dinner with our new friend. It was a loveley day. Oh my. I wish there were more days like that. Only the strange look on peoples faces I could do without. Anyway, later on I went home and showed my roommates my latest Investment.

They were speechless.

And not because of his stunning smile.

"Uh....Sander...We tolerate a lot from you, but this painting is just....too much".

I was a bit disappointed. I thought my Roomates had taste and style. They just didn't get it. This painting was way ahead of his time. I hung hank in the kitchen anyway, they just had to learn to live with it. One day they would get it!So hank hung there for months, and was the topic of many discussion. Each visitor that came by commented on hank. "What an ugly piece of crap!" was the most common reaction. But then I just told them that they were not ready for it yet. That I was pretty sure this would hang next to the Mona Lisa within 30 years. Or maybe 40. It was just a matter of time. Really. Tourbusses full of Japanese tourist will be lining up in front of the Louvre, the Moma will be paying millions to obtain this. T-shirts, Coffee mugs, Posters - whole giftstores ill be filled with Hanks face. Its only a matter of time.

But then, somewhere last week, I woke up with a strange feeling. I went down into the kitchen, and Hank was gone.... Gone! I asked around the house where it was. "Sorry, Hank is taking some time of" they said - followed by a big smile. Unbelievable. Hank got kidnapped by my own roommates! I was furious! The Motherfuckers! I asked them how much they wanted for it. I would do the dished for the rest of the year. Cook three meals a day. Get tons of beer. It didnt matter. I had to get Hank back!! Now!

But they refused. They didn't want to negotiate. They were stone cold kidnappers with no heart.

So weeks went by without Hank. I didn't hear anything from the kidnappers either. They just went on with there life's like nothing happened. They even seemed a little bit happier then normal. How could they!

I almost gave up hope, and cried myself into sleep almost every night. But then, last night, when I was cleaning up the laundry closet - I got reunited with hank! They put him in the awfull dusty laundry closet under a pile of dirty clothes!!! All happy, I brought it to my room fast and locked the door. Finally we were re-united.

So now, Hank will stay in my room, where it is safe until the day the world finally embraces him.... "One day you will be accepted for who you are". is what I whispered is ear right before I fell asleap with Hank in my arms. Its only a matter of time.