- Topics
- Absence
- Animal lovers
- Around death
- Artistry
- Awesome nature
- Bricks and Mortar
- Collecting
- Conversations and Encounters
- Copyright
- Craftsmanship
- Crisis identity
- Daily Life
- Digital Data & Dreams
- Dressing Up
- Engagement
- Esoteric
- Failure is accepted
- Family issues
- Folk art
- Handmade nature
- How to Make Art
- In Love
- Light
- Man–Machine
- Naming
- Omission
- On not seeing
- On Nothing
- Philosophy
- Postcard
- Printed Matter
- Quaint Customs
- Remarkable Persons
- Research
- Serendipity
- Sex
- Silence
- Souvenirs
- Stendhal syndrome
- Stupidity
- The Written Word
- This is man
- Time
- Tints, Tones and Hues
- Travel
- Urban Culture
- Violence
- Visualisation
- Where we are
- Witnesses
- Wonderful Musea
- Tags
- language
- absence
- abstract patterns
- adultery
- affection
- aimless thought
- algorithms
- alphabet
- alter ego
- anatomy
- animal friendly
- animals
- antihero
- anxiety
- appreciation
- architecture
- architecture
- Arnolfini
- art academy
- art and life
- artificial intelligence
- artistic ambition
- artistic dreams
- artistry
- astronomy
- at home
- at the office
- auobiography
- authorship
- autodidact
- Barnett Newman
- baroque
- beauty
- bench
- birds
- black style
- books
- Boredom
- brands
- brazil
- bubonic plague
- camera obscura
- capitalism
- career
- carnival
- cat
- categorization
- censorship
- ceramic
- cherish
- childhood
- Chinese
- Chopsticks
- christianity
- CIA
- cinema
- circus
- clock time/solar time
- clothing
- coincidence
- collaboration
- collections
- colonialism
- colour
- communication
- community art
- composer
- composition
- conceptual art
- concrete
- control
- conveyor-belt
- costume
- craft
- creative block
- daily life
- daydreaming
- death
- decay
- delirium
- dentist
- design
- desire
- detroit
- diaries
- digital art
- digital innovation
- disappointment
- disaster tourism
- discourse
- DIY
- do-good-er project
- documents
- dog
- Dorien Boland
- dreams
- dwarf
- ecology
- electronics
- emotion
- emptiness
- encyclopedia
- enigma
- erotic art
- espionage
- Ethnologie
- experiment
- exposition
- fairy tale
- fame
- fashion
- fear
- fetish for shoes
- fire
- Fischli and Weiss
- fish
- Flickr
- fluorescent light
- flying
- folk art
- food
- football
- free association
- freedom
- French
- frog
- Garden
- Gauguin
- Georges Perec
- Giotto
- gps
- grandeur
- grief
- growing up
- hands
- healer
- heritage
- Herman Lamers
- hero
- high school shootings
- History
- homo ludens
- hooligans
- hospitality
- House of representatives
- humanity
- humour
- hunting
- Ig Nobelprijs
- image and meaning
- imperfection
- impressionism
- improbable research
- in love
- Indians
- interior
- internet
- invention
- inventory
- Iran
- Irma Boom
- isms
- isolation
- James Jennifer and Georgina
- Jesus
- jewellery
- junk
- La France
- labor
- labour
- landscape
- language
- laughter
- learning
- light
- lists
- literature
- living doll
- loneliness
- Louise Bourgeois
- love
- Lust
- machine
- magic
- making art
- making public collection
- maps
- Maria Roosen
- marriage
- martyr
- matchsticks
- materiality
- math
- media avalanche
- memories
- memory
- Michelangelo
- middle ages
- military aircraft
- miniature
- miniature models
- modern art
- monsters
- mouse
- muse
- museum
- music
- nature
- nature historic museum
- Navid Nuur
- nazis
- Nietzsche
- norway
- nostalgia
- nothing
- nuns
- observation
- orbis terrarum
- outsider art
- painting
- Panamarenko
- papua
- participation
- party
- performance
- perfume
- phallus
- philosophy
- photography
- placebo
- planets
- plants
- Plato
- poetry
- porcelain
- post-modern tales
- postcards
- postdigital
- power
- prehistory
- principle
- Privatisation
- progress
- psychiatry
- psychoanalysis
- punishment
- quality
- quantity
- Raymond Roussel
- reading
- reflection
- rejection
- relic
- religion
- religious scenario
- reproduction
- research
- Restaurant
- Rick Owens
- rituals
- Roads
- sacrifice
- scale
- school
- science
- science fiction
- sectarianism
- sensuality
- serendipity
- sex
- Shakespeare
- shaman
- silence
- situationist
- smell
- smoking
- smoking in films
- snapshots
- snowball
- social design
- social upheaval
- soldiers
- sonology
- sound
- sound experiment
- souvenir
- special encounters
- spectator
- sport
- Stasi
- stasimuseum
- stock art
- studio
- superstition
- Surinam
- synthetic creatures
- systems
- tag
- talent
- television
- The Beatles
- the city
- the domestic
- The giant of Rotterdam
- The Hague
- the public
- the rich and famous
- Thesis
- time
- time travel
- Titiaan
- to fail
- to look
- touch
- traces
- trademark
- tragedy
- transport
- travel
- trees
- truth
- Tunnel
- unfinished/finished
- union
- universe
- university
- urban culture
- USA
- Van Gogh
- Venice Biennale
- viewer
- violence
- virtual reality
- visual research
- visualization
- voodoo
- vulcano
- War
- water
- weapons
- whip
- wikipedia
- wild animals
- work
- World War II
- write
- writer
- x-ray
- YouTube
- zine
- Locations
- Brooklyn, New York
- LUST
- Contributors
- Afra Eisma
- Alessandro Gualtieri
- Alex de Vries
- André Thijssen
- Anna Bates
- Anna Hoetjes
- Annelein Pompe
- Aram Bartholl
- Arie Altena
- Auke Hulst
- Bert Sliggers
- Casey E.B. Reas
- Céline Manz
- Chiara Veenstra
- Chris Reinewald
- Christine Willemen
- Christopher Rothko
- Claudia Sola
- Constant Dullaart
- Cornel Bierens
- Daniel Jensen
- Daniil Charms
- David Reinfurt
- David Stroband
- Desperado Philosophy
- Devon Barthes
- Dirk Vis
- Dorien de Wit
- Echo + Seashell
- editorial staff/ redactie
- Elejan van der Velde
- Elja Looijestein
- Eric Peter
- Erik Kessel
- Ernst van der Hoeven
- Esther Polak
- Farah Rahman
- Floris Schönfeld
- Flos van Haren
- Gemma Barendse
- Gerda van de Glind
- Gijs Assman
- Gijs Frieling
- Gilles de Brock
- Hanae Wilke
- Hannah Stearn
- Hanne Hagenaars
- Hans Aarsman
- Hans Venhuizen
- Heidi Vogels
- Heleen Rippen
- Henk Valk
- Hester Alberdingk Thijm
- Huilin Shi
- Ilse van Rijn
- Ine Poppe
- Inge de Boer
- Iona Hoogenberk
- Jan Dietvorst
- Jan Egbers
- Jan Hoek
- Janneke Wesseling
- Jean Bernard Koeman
- Jeroen Barendse, Thomas Castro, Dimitri Nieuwenhuizen
- Jeroen van der Hulst
- Jet Bakels
- Jigna Umeria
- Johan van Oord
- John Cage
- John Körmeling
- Jonas Ohlsson
- Jonatah Manno
- José da Silva
- Josje Hattink
- K.Schippers
- Kaweh Modiri
- Kees Moeliker
- Koen Kleijn
- Laura Byrne
- Laura Reedijk
- Laurens de Rooy
- Liesbeth Fit
- Lieuwe Vos
- Luuk Wilmering
- Maartje Wortel
- Maja Klaassens
- Marc Boumeester
- Marcel Bouman
- Marcin Biesiada
- Marcus Pantus
- Margot Dijkgraaf
- Matthijs van Boxsel
- Maurits de Bruijn
- Maze de Boer
- Melanie Bonajo
- Mels van Zutphen
- Michel Hoogervorst
- Miek Zwamborn
- Milda Vyšniauskaitė
- Mirthe Kluck
- Nat Muller
- Nina Thibo
- Nóra Békés
- Patrizio di Massimo
- Paul Bogaers
- Paul Kempers
- Paul Pieroni
- Pek Van Andel
- Pere Llobera
- Pierre Derks
- Rein Jelle Terpstra
- Richtje Reinsma
- Robert Cervera
- Robert Klatser
- Robert Schreuder
- Robin Waart
- Rozemund Uljée
- Ruben Verkuylen
- Rypke Zeilmaker
- Samira D'Amato
- Sander Uitdehaag
- Sarah van Sonsbeeck
- Sebastian Rypson
- Stevijn van Heusden
- Taco Hidde Bakker
- Tamara Robeer
- Tammo Schuringa
- Teun Verheij
- Thomas Mailaender
- Timothy Scholte
- Ton Matton
- Valentina Pini
- Vincent W.J. van Gerven Oei
- Vladimir Nabokov
- Willemien van Duijn
- Wilma Sütö
- Wim Brands
- Woody Allen
- Wouter Prins
- Yeb Wiersma
S
Samira D'Amato
28.03.2014

Ferdinand van Kessel


Ferdinand van Kessel
I was standing in a corridor when a tall, young man walked briskly passed me. Moments later he was chased by a small brunette whose every step seemed to fall into the spaces left behind him. He marched on in anger and as she furiously followed, she hissed, ‘This will be the last time, it’s over, I swear to god I will just disappear.’
Watching them rush down the corridor, I thought about how many times I had seen this exact process of emotions in others, and of course experienced it myself. We all know this story, it is constantly repeated, or at least we are all familiar with this interpretation of the story: one threatening to cut the other off whilst running after them in bewildered warning, angrily and frantically begging them to stay whilst they move away. The strange and stylised emotional language we use in situations that we cannot or do not want to express, the reformations of our true purpose in order to avoid vulnerability, and yet through all our fictions and theatricalities, our intentions, although unpronounced, are understood.
If already just in this superficial layer, in all these given understandings of this situation we can see the magnitude and effect of our interpretation on the “reality” of things, at what point do we stop interpreting, what is the actual, the non-fictional?
So many aspects of my self were suddenly laid bare before me as stories I had told myself, interpretations of people’s actions in designed sequences. The way I saw, the way I was seen and in whatever light anything is shown, are all characteristics that are open to interpretation. If we dissect this situation to all its separate parts, we see that everything occurring only exists as one thing after another, events and actions in meaningless succession; it is we who give it meaning and chronology.
I stood in a corridor. Through this same corridor, a tall, young man walked, he moved quickly and dropped his feet heavily as he did so. A small brunette also walked through this corridor. As the small brunette walked, she spoke, her words were fast and rhythmic.
“Narrative is present at all times, in all places, in all societies; indeed narrative starts with the very history of mankind; there is not, there has never been anywhere, any people without narrative … Narrative is international, trans-historical, trans-cultural; it is there, like life.”- Roland Barthes”[1]

Scènes de la vie privée et publique des animaux
Used in the design of tarot cards
J. Grandville
R. Barthes, ‘On Narrative and Narratives’, in: R. Barthes and L. Duisit, New Literary History, Vol. 6, No. 2, Baltimore, US: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975, pp. 237 -272