Sjoerd Martens

Video: The Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision’s RE:VIVE initiative and Dekmantel teamed up for the third time to invite artists to bring fresh music to a curation of Dutch archival films. This year Artificial Dance label boss Interstellar Funk teamed up with visual artist Sjoerd Martens and visual artist and composer Guenter Råler.

Instead of producers composing music for pre-existing films, Interstellar Funk teamed up with visual artist Sjoerd Martens who stylized and edited several 1930s films from the Sound and Vision collection resulting in a completely new visual work. As well, Guenter Råler, an accomplished visual artist in her own right, created a new film based on the Sound and Vision Natuurbeelden collection, a large open data-set of raw nature films.

Seasonshore Sequences, 1400×1080 / 4:3 HD color 00:15:16 Stereo. Supported by Mondrian Fund.

Dekmantel Records: V/A - Scores III: Dekmantel once again teams up with RE:VIVE, the cultural initiative setup by the The Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision, to pair modern electronic talent with Dutch archival footage. The third EP in the Scores series sees Interstellar Funk and Italian producer Guenter Råler create innovative, modular soundscapes to the graceful visual arts unearthed from the Sound & Vision archives.

As Interstellar Funk, Olf van Elden uses his production competency to craft a heavenly arpeggiated, synth composition to the amateur aquarium movies by J.L. Clement which are edited for this project by Sjoerd Martens. Filmed in the 1940’s, the video’s turn-of-the-century black-and-white style aquatic footage is reanimated through van Elden’s tacit polyphonic, modular sonic soundtrack. Layering together multiple sequences, van Elden pieces together the music as a whole, to mimic the way in which the film was created.

On the B-Side, Italian abstract artist and Dutch native Guenter Raler concocts a deeply introspective, and perfectly choreographed, ambient soundtrack to a select series of pieced together clips from the Collectie Natuurbeelden, [the Institute’s Collection of Natural Images]. The music plays against the depiction of multiple biological communities in transition; what is referred to as an ecotone. The title itself not only recalls that of a musical tone, but represents the ever-evolving aspect of life and nature as similar colours, along with movements of animals and plants pass on from one image to the next.

Within their own right, the new scores not only give the age-old films new context and sonic character, but exist as creative works as their own, full of resonance and individualism that highlight the retrospective artists’ voices to their fullest.

Dekmantel Records: V/A - Scores III is available on vinyl and digital.

'Thessa and I have known each other for some time. In this time that could be considered uncertain, this project gave us the opportunity to start research the relationship between the two of us, our natural environment, and the reflections through two different mediums. In an organic process in which the natural environment is recorded, dissected, modified, and reconnected, it carries a new home. It is a reflection in which sound reveals itself in images, and the image reveals itself in sound but over and above, continues to encourage each other. Also, it gives a new shape as an alternative for the traditional album cover, so it doesn’t disappear between the usual record collection.

On both sides of our process, we have experienced the same increasing almost parallel development. Featuring that we do not criticise nor complement each other but let actions influence each other. We attach a high value to self-development within our processes. In some phases of the process, it is necessary to disengage, but at the other moment, you cannot do without each other. The beauty in this new work is that one does not exist without the other. For instance, the use of the glockenspiel and the pearlescent garage do not come out of the blue. The direct printing technique on aluminum makes the piece sculpture of our legacy, which in turn stems from the strong metal melody of the glockenspiel. I see it as a form of communication in the relationship between different elements in development.

The project ‘Birds Sing Like The Horn Of A Truck’ tests an expedition through various transformations in both analog and digital landscape. In this way, we discover the fertility of unharmed textures, pure natural colours, the serenity in harmony with remnants of artefacts, abandoned footprints, and interruptions. Both image and sound are composed of dozens of samples. These merge as a community that questions the manufacturability of our nature.'

Printed directly on dibond, 40x32 cm for sale at Duotoon

Picture 1: Birds sing like the horn of a truck (2020), Performance, video-still, 120x149cm
Picture 2: Birds sing like the horn of a truck (2020), dibond, 40x32cm

Project series in progress - Radioactive Bodies (2020) / portraying the architecture of radioactivity. The visual study of Radioactive Bodies is published in a small series of artist publications De Reeks. It's available for purchase, more information at the website of De Reeks.

Radioactive Bodies is a visual study of the high levels of radiation in Sweden caused by the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986. Several self-documented territories meet each other in which radiation level data confesses surprising discoveries. From the heart of the Ukrainian nuclear exclusion zone, the surrounding abandoned habitat to public recreation parks around the capital Stockholm in Sweden. Some cases in Sweden don’t show any difference in radiation levels or even have higher levels than the Chernobyl exclusion zone in Ukraine.

This project is made possible with the financial support of Mondriaan Fund.

Everyday we are confronted by more and more artificiality in our surroundings. Our natural spaces are slowly transforming into a mise en scène that reflects our human activities. Simultaneously, it can also be seen as a device that we employ as we desire. Earthskin (2019) is a botanical artwork. A video sculpture consisting of flora and artifacts extracted from our everyday lives; traces left behind in the Amsterdam parks and beds, from cigarette filters to bicycle parts, plastic and glass to jewelry. These elements not only exist in the grand scheme of things but also form their own microcosm. The viewer is brought into an unknown environment by micrography and collage. A microcosm of human spores elevates to macrocosm: Organic and synthetic bodies circulate seamlessly, creating an unknown habitat and breathing space. What we previously could not perceive has now been immortalized in a new digital creation. The soundtrack provides an undertone of threat and dystopia, which is at the same time also seductive.

4032×3024 / 4:3 HD color 00:19:50 Stereo

Installation photos at De School, Amsterdam.

An idea of a dystopian but seductive cosmos is extended into a video work of a much larger scale. Clouds are Changing (2019) is an immersive video, projected on 150 square meters for Canvas in TivoliVredenburg. Because of the life-size surface of the projection and the windows next to it where you have a view of the city of Utrecht, the projection gives the impression that you can look out through the physical walls of the space into a gigantic starry sky that opens up a new world. Due to the different surfaces of the canvas and the large surface area of the video, which moves across all surfaces, the image seems to fragment, bend and crumple.

In commission of TivoliVredenburg a 150m² videowork is made for Canvas. On show november 2019 - march 2020. More info can be found on the website of TivoliVredenburg. Installation shot at Canvas opening night.

This series has emerged from the Scenery of Japan (2018) series. After combining elements into a new landscape in the collages, now a whole new narrative element has been added. Playgrounds (2019) is made in the three Japanese cities of Osaka, Kyoto, and Tokyo have been digitally manipulated with fire seas. The playground is pre-eminently a location that is perceived as unheimlich without human presence. Leaving the playground could be seen as the end of youth, which is captured in this image through the destruction of the playground. However, the fire can also be seen as an age-old place for a human encounter.

In clothing line Exclusive healing energy (2019), Chinese clothing designer Sassy Lassy (a.k.a. 潔廁林) processed digital collage patterns made by Sjoerd Martens. The prints on the futuristic swimwear line are made up of images of mainly street waste, ice cubes, cubist shapes abstracted from glass dessert dishes; a non-biodegradable artifact. See more of the Exclusive healing energy project in Zhejiang.

In commission of Nous'klaer Audio for upsammy’s LP Wild Chamber

"In many ways Spring seems to be the perfect seasonal match for upsammy: no matter the tempo nor intensity, her style is colourful, restorative and carries a tangible promise of new beginnings. So Wild Chamber arrives at the right time, but it is an evergreen package – eight songs to slot into different situations, to speak to different moods, yet come from the same heart. A mini-LP that captures dawn mist, reflecting-pool shimmer, and occasional flashes of brilliant blue light. Swells of bass sag and yawn, time signatures switch up and break down, drums stutter and charge, and gossamer melodic trails are traced like ice skates atop a thawing lake. Innumerable shards of ideas are present, yet the music is airy and uncluttered. Wild Chamber is upsammy at her most pure, sketching sonic miniatures with a precise eye and an inquisitive ear quite unlike anyone else’s right now." https://youtu.be/R1mIX76GHfs Music video For vinyl: fanlink.to/wildchamber Text from above by Gabriel Szatan

For the exhibition Self-publish or be damned, I’ve made a printed zine (16 pages) filled with photos from this fall captured in Sweden. Together with some flora and artifacts scans of the Earthskin project. On show from Nov 29th – Dec 21th at Academiegalerie, Utrecht.

Installation photo at Garage Noord, Amsterdam.

Mixed media printed on plexiglass and aluminium.