Type/Dynamics
Interactive installation and exhibition at Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam

The exhibition Type/dynamics sees two galleries at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam adorned with large, interactive typographic installations, that plays off, reacts to, and dialogues with the work of Jurriaan Schrofer. 

The visual dynamic of Schrofer’s typographic art suggests that his designs were created on the computer but they predate the digital era: Schrofer designed everything by hand. The installation visualizes information that continuously surrounds us and is always accessible. By searching for real-time locations currently in the news, like Ground Zero, Reichstag, or Tiananmen square, the installation can locate the panorama images from Google Streetview, abstract them into grids and fill the grids with new information. As a visitor to the space, you are literally 'transported’ to that location and surrounded by all the news associated with that specific location. Instead of a photographic representation, the place is represented purely typographically with a host of new items currently being talked about at that location. Nothing in the gallery space stands still; all information continuously moves.

Jurriaan Schrofer’s oeuvre consists primarily of printed matter that is designed manually. In the 1960s, however, he experimented with new techniques, offset printing for instance, as a means to achieve 'moving typography’. Throughout Schrofer’s work, dynamics, or movement, is the common thread. Starting in the 1970s Schrofer, then a design researcher, explored patterns and structures inspired by the Op Art movement. He meticulously investigated strange perspectives, depth of field and typographic symbols. 

Typography as Carrier of Data
Jurriaan Schrofer looked for new ways to express dynamics and movement in printed typography. Type/Dynamics shows the dynamic qualities of information and typography. The concept that design is endowed with a form that is unfinished or changeable has been self-evident in contemporary design for quite some time. Nowadays attention is paid more to the design of rules, or creating the framework in which something can happen. In a database for instance, content does not have an innate form, but rather receives form at the moment it is shown via the interface. In fact, the same information can be represented in an endless number of ways. The interface allows for content to be shown as data, as information, or as knowledge; ultimately content appears as loose data without a context, as data in a context, or as interpreted information. This data can even change per week, day, or minute. What is evident through this process is a very different approach and attitude towards design than the questions of Schrofer’s generation. 

In a time when data can be accessed and can manifest itself in all kinds of ways, typography should no longer represent just formal aspects of information. Instead typography can itself be the carrier of content. A letter is the smallest content entity, but even this letter can contain the whole dataset for the content it represents. LUST sees interaction design as the new literature. It is not only about the interactive aspect of the effect, it is also about the narrative possibilities; narrative structures that go beyond linear or non-linear. This new literature is also about literary aspects like references, analogies, structures, points-of-view, time – all contributing to the complete narrative of an installation. A visitor does not need to grasp all possible readings of a work at once; instead multiple story lines unfold over multiple readings. All aspects from content to movement, interaction, data collection and collaboration contribute to this new literature. The spatial experience of the installation can be compared to that of the ‘Aleph’, from the book by Jorge Luis Borges. There is a point where you can see everything that has ever happened on earth in a single moment. The moment is so overwhelming that at once you see everything and then you don’t see anything at all. 

The Exhibition 
Type/Dynamics consists of two identical galleries of the same conceptual theme. In the first gallery the walls are covered with enlarged detail images of Schrofer’s work. Originals are located in vitrines with an emphasis on sketches. Also located in this gallery are two vertical screens that present works by Schrofer interactively in relation to the visitors’ viewing position. The second gallery presents a free interpretation of Schrofer’s work. Sensors track the visitors’ movement, while the projections subsequently respond to the position and number of visitors in the space, as well as their distance from the gallery walls. Visitors acquaint themselves with a specific topic by literally walking towards an item of interest. The typographic grid closest to the visitor then opens up and becomes more readable, while new typographic layers open up for further exploration. 

Dance performance in the Type/Dynamics installation
Cinematography: Ruben van Leer
Choreography: Lukas Timulak
Dancers: Lukas Timulak, Valentina Scaglia
Support: Camalot

The Movie
Next to the exhibition, also a short dance movie was produced using the Type/Dynamics installation as a point of departure. Together with director Ruben van Leer and choreographer Lukas Timulak this movie was shot on location at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. 

Technical details
The main program runs on a single computer that drives eight HD projectors written in OPENRNDR. The OPENRNDR framework is developed to support the creation of complex interactive installations that require processing power.

The tracking setup consists of four small Intel NUCs, each of which is connected to two Kinect sensors. The observational data that we acquire from the kinect sensors is sent to a processing unit that fuses the data into a single observation of the space. Using this setup we can accurately track multiple individuals through the entire space.

Date
2014
Location
Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam
Design and implementation
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Studio

RNDR is a design studio for interactive media that develops ‘tools’ that are only finished by how they are used.

To achieve this, we develop processes, create structures, design visualisations, code programs, and create interactions. The end result can manifest itself across different media, ranging from interactive installations, data visualisations, generative identities, prints and everything in between – often real-time. We are triggered by how information and technology transforms networks, cultures, societies, relationships, behaviours, and interactions between people. Our work explores and engages with hybrid space as it embraces both digital and physical realms.

RNDR was founded in 2017 in The Hague, (NL). Its main members have years of experience as partners, computer scientists, designers, art directors and developers at LUST and LUSTlab.

One of our core projects, and basis for most of our projects, is OPENRNDR, an open source framework for creative coding –written in Kotlin for the JVM– with over 13 years of development. OPENRNDR simplifies writing real-time audio-visual interactive software. OPENRNDR is fundamental for the capacity of RNDR as a studio, as it allows us to realize complex interactive works. OPENRNDR was awarded the Dutch Design Award 2019

Fields of work
Interactive design (ui/ux), data visualisation, information systems, software tools, interactive installations, media architecture, immersive experiences, interface design, visual identities, generative video, creative coding, exhibition design, graphic design systems, hybrid spaces and platforms, machine learning and artificial intelligence (ai), code and design workshops.

People
Jeroen Barendse (NL), partner. Design and art direction. Former partner of LUST and LUSTlab. Awarded BNO Piet Zwart Oeuvre Prize 2017
Edwin Jakobs (NL), partner. Computer scientist, creative coder and visual artist. Creator of OPENRNDR
Boyd Rotgans (NL), partner. Creative coder & interaction designer
Viola Bernacchi (IT). Design & data visualisation
Els van Dijk (NL), office manager
Marco Dell'Abate (IT), Royal Academy for the Arts, The Hague, Creative coder, 2023
Nike Kuschick (DE), Munich University of Applied Sciences, Interaction Designer, intern, 2024
Previously at RNDR
Thomas McElmeel (US), College for Creative Studies, Detroit, intern, 2023
Marco Dell'Abate (IT), Royal Academy for the Arts, The Hague, intern, 2021
Rein van der Woerd (NL), Data Art Technology Arnhem, Artez, intern, 2021
Derrek Chow (CA), University of Waterloo, Waterloo, intern, 2021
Jon Packles (USA), Parsons School of Design | The New School, intern and freelance, 2021
Jasper Kamphuis (NL), Willem de Kooning Academy, Rotterdam, intern, 2020
Ferdinand Sorg (DE), Hochschule für Gestaltung Schwäbisch Gmünd, intern , 2020
Jaekook Han (KR), Graduate Interactive Telecommunications Program, NYC, intern
Gábor Kerekes (HU), developer
Amir Houieh (IR), developer
Łukasz Gula (PL), Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, intern
Noemi Biro (RO), Willem de Kooning Academy, Rotterdam, intern
Selection of exhibitions
Oracle unfolded @Highlight Delft Festival, 2023
Perpetual Beta; Encounters in open space, The Grey Space, The Hague, 2021
Open Highway, Raum, Utrecht, 2018
Typojanchi Typography Biennale Seoul, main exhibitor (as LUST), 2017
Cartographies of Rest, interactive installation at Mile End Art Pavilion in London (as LUST), 2016
Hyperlocator, What’s next, Future Tomorrow, 38CC Delft (as LUST), 2016
Type/Dynamics exhibition, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam (as LUST), 2014
Selection of lectures
Creative Coding With Kotlin and OPENRNDR, online presentation for Jetbrains, 2023
Cloud Salon presentation at Parsons Design & Technology, New York
Experimental Data Visualization for Master of Arts in Interaction Design, SUPSI, Mendrisio, 2022
Lecture Information Design masters. Design Academy Eindhoven, 2021
Talk for Graphic Days Turin, Eyes on the Netherlands (IT), 2021
Lecture for TAAALKS conference, Munich, 2020
Presentation at GitHub Satellite, 2020
Lecture at Britisch Library for Central Saint Martins' Form, Reform, Perform: futures of writing, 2019
MiXit conference, Lyon, 2019
Google Span conference, presentation and demo, Helsinki, 2018
JFuture conference, Minsk, 2018
Creative Coding Utrecht, Launch of OPENRNDR, 2018
Selection of workshops
Workshop OPENRNDR for Graphic Days, Turin (IT), 2021
OPENRDNR workshop for Digital Society School, Amsterdam, 2020
Weeklong workshop OPENRNDR @Politecnico di Milano, 2020
OPENRNDR x Machine Learning workshop @ KABK during Tech Week, 2020
Two week OPENRNDR workshop at Tumo, Armenia, 2019
Workshop OPENRNDR at Artez Interaction Design, Arnhem, 2019
Processing Community Day 2019, CCU and Sensorlab, Utrecht, 2019
Royal Academy of Art (KABK), Techweek, The Hague, 2019
Utrecht School for the Arts (HKU), OPENRNDR workshop, 2018
La Scuola Open Source, 1-week workshop, Bari, Italy, 2018
Two-week workshop at TUMO foundation, Yerevan, Armenia, 2019
OPENRNDR x Machine learning workshop @SUPSI, Mendrisio, CH, 2022
Teaching
Information Design, Master program Geo Design, Design Academy Eindhoven, 2023
Creative coding, Master Non-linear Narrative, KABK, The Hague, 2023
Interaction Design, Design Art Technology Arnhem, Artez, 2008
Generative Design, Bachelor Man and Communication, Design Academy Eindhoven, 2019

Contact

RNDR

Paviljoensgracht 20
2512 BP, The Hague
+31 (0)70.3635776

info@rndr.studio


INTERNSHIPS

We are mostly looking for interns that have a background in interactive design. Some experience in coding is preferred. 

interns@rndr.studio

OPENRNDR
Open source framework for creative coding that simplifies writing real-time interactive software

info@openrndr.org
openrndr.org