projects
Our side of the Moon
2022 - Now (Post Production, coming to earth 2023)
TV Series
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Our Side of the Moon follows a group of individuals who are drawn to an archaic form of radio-communication that bounces messages off the moon and puts them in contact with strangers around the world. The story follows Diana, a brilliant young radio astronomer living under the Dwingeloo radio telescope in the Netherlands, and her ‘moonbouncing’ penpal Atari, based at the squatted Elfordstown Earthstation. Marked by a chronic mutism, Diana possesses a special skill: sound-to-movement synesthesia, a condition which allows her to ‘feel’ sound as muscular responses in her body. A strange radio message that bounces off the moon’s surface every day is rumoured to be a response to the legendary space probes Voyager 1 and 2, however, Diana’s synesthetic capabilities allow her to discover a different truth, which catapults her into a journey to the other side of the moon...
The Spirit of Connectivity
2020
Short Filmmaking project
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What does "Connection" mean to you?
Together with a worldwide network of yet to meet connections, this piece of moving imagery attempts to generate and grasp the answer to this question. While reaching out to different artists from all over the world, from videographers, producers, vocalists, singer-songwriters, spokesman, musicians, dancers, performers,.. this film is a homage to connection and being connected. As the art direction itself may only have taken place through the extension of virtual communication. A portal that enables us to connect over distance, with distant strangers, to other perspectives, visions, thoughts, hopes, and dreams. It is a modern take on virtual filmmaking that can only be made possible through connecting beyond the virtual boundaries of the physical, cognitive, and philosophical realms of the afar and the other. Together we send, we receive, and we enable; connection. A bond we establish together.
The Octopus Network
2020
Filmmaking project
Symbiosis between Marco Mezzavilla (Scientist telecommunications, NYC) & Valerie van Zuijlen (Filmmaker, NL).
A living organism to host, extend, connect, and express our senses.
The Octopus Network is our attempt to capture the boundless motion of human senses, thoughts, and emotions that are constantly flowing around us - transported over invisible waves that dance to the vibrational rhythm of electromagnetism, one of the four fundamental forces of Nature.
We explored the spectrum in which physical boundaries become virtually boundless. During this exploratory journey, we met distant strangers that felt closer than ever. We switched roles, we stretched our senses, we created virtual spaces that gave us a sense of natural equilibrium, collectiveness, togetherness, and sensorial flow.
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Part of the Imagine Science Film Festival "Symbiosis" competition, 18-23 October 2020
Special Thanks to Labocine, Science Sandbox & Imagine Science Films.
Moonlight
2019
Light & Sound Installation
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Moonlight is an extraterrestrial light show that will be shown in the heavenly location of the Steentjeskerk in Eindhoven, the Netherlands as part of GLOW 2019. A special project in collaboration with the national monument: the Dwingeloo radio telescope and HAM Radio Operators Jan van Muijlwijk and Harry Keizer.
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Part of GLOW Lightfestival Eindhoven, 9-16 November 2019
Special Thanks to Crow-Foederer Talent Award 2019.
Aireal
2019
Feature iPhone & Drone Film
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I've spent the day in front of my memory box. I was slowly scanning a vision without knowing it was a description of a dream. More and more my dreams find their settings in the clouds. A face appears, disappears, a trace is found, is lost. I realize that I continue to seek in the labyrinth of the Past, a Future concealed the night before. I begin to wonder if those dreams are really mine, or if part of a totality, of a gigantic collective dream of which the entire universe may be the projection.
Part of "As Real As It Can Get", the graduation show of Shadow Channel, MA Film, Design and Politics at Sandberg Instituut, Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
The Cellular Aura
2017
Phone Aura Reading & Performance
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‘The Cellular Aura’ offers access to the soul of our digital devices by connecting the spiritual eye (selfie camera) of a phone to its own reflection. This creates a spiritual loophole between users and their holy grail of technology. Valerie van Zuijlen, a self-proclaimed Witch of WiFi, is a superstitious believer in spiritual elements intent on worshipping her computer and phone as holy objects that are able to communicate within their own field of technology. She is convinced there is a way to connect with the soul of her devices through an understanding of their enchanting behaviour and communicating in their personal language.
Part of the groupshow ‘Materialising the Internet’ 6 October – 12 November, 2017 @Mu Art Space, Eindhoven, NL.
Scrolling into the Deep
2016
Desktop Film
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I have been dragged into a one-to-one relationship with my computer. Day after day after day I look into the window of my screen, a window that acts as an electronic mirror of my physical environment, where elements from nature are translated into a digital realm with its very own standards. Scrolling Into The Deep is a piece of desktop cinema, in which I infiltrate this wonderland by scrolling deeper and deeper into the digital rabbit hole. ‘If I could have a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is. Because everything would be what it isn’t. And computer wise, what is, wouldn’t be. And what it wouldn’t be, it would. You see?’ – Alice in Wonderland to Mission control: Hello, World!
Botanic Forest
2014
Virtual Community Garden
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What would happen when we could only plant trees online?
Starting with the phrase of three words, “seeds”; Digital Nature Surrealism, I got interested in the interaction between presenting physical nature in a digital atmosphere and vice versa. Especially the perception of reality in a physical or digital environment and the different properties nature brings along amongst these different platforms of reality.
Eventually I created a context with a starting question for my research topic: ‘What if we can only plant trees online?’
I “hacked”, encrypted, the processing codes of various trees on the website of Snappy Tree, an online platform which allows you in a minimal way to change parameters of branches and leafs of realistic re-generated tree models. By changing the codes of these original ‘tree seeds’ I managed to make or as I would like to say re-crossed my own tree species in a digital environment.
Playing with presenting a physical form of nature into the digital world and by bringing this digital form back into the physical world with the same properties I find fascinating. The idea of recreating a forest as an open source platform like a community garden, which allows you to create your own tree and plant it in the Botanic Forest.
Pixel Portars
2015
Browserbased Video Game
A game concept based on the approach of the position of the White-hat Hacker. The ultimate form of power within the Game space. The number 33554432 is the Holy Grail inside the HTML code. It represents the eternity of redemption within this program. The definitive length of the scrollbar. The name ‘Pixel Portar’ stands for the avatars, which are just as the rest of the functions inside of the game completely referential to this code in every possible way. The Pixel Portars are able to overcome the glitch by floating amongst the pixels, and hereby founders of the ultimate power within HTML space.
Local Local
2014
Currency
The creation of a currency value system based on a certain structure inside the ArtEZ Academy.
I created a value system based on the login code of the computers in the ArtEZ Academy. The multiple username of ‘Local’ with password ‘Local’ leads to a collective authorship of this account. Besides sharing the username the existing files on the computer can be used for collective purposes. The idea of an open source gallery inside the LocalLocal browser that contains these files and can be re-organised and re-uploaded any time by any user. Eventually giving more value to these files by printing them with different techniques (made possible in the workplaces inside the Academy), and roulating these analogue files throughout the Academy.
De Diedenweg
2012
Google Streetview
Project based on the privacy option for 'blurring' your house in Google Street view.
Besides using this 'privacy tool' for blurring your own house I managed to erase my entire street.
As a registration I created a publication in which are shown two pictures of the houses in my street. Screenshots of the houses before the blurring and screenshots after the houses are blurred by Google.
