Sjoerd Martens

In the series Scenery of Japan (2018) the scenic is brought to the table by developing digital manipulation and collage techniques. Images captured during an expedition through Central and Southern Japan, are combined in different perspectives on the same setting and through a realistic collage of photographic material. Through this technique is tried to capture not only human traces but also the poetry, energy of the environment and human presence in the image. The series is presented in the form of prints, in which a combination is used of prints on photo paper and glossy prints of collage on plexiglass and aluminum.

In commission of NDSM, The Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision (RE:VIVE)

"For Amsterdam MuseumNight 2018, a special collaboration between NDSM and The Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision (RE:VIVE) will bring a floating historical experience to the canals of Amsterdam that poetically re-imagines the life of one of the most famous ocean liners ever built in Amsterdam, the m.s. Oranje. Visual artist Sjoerd Martens and musician Thessa Torsing (upsammy) will debut a new audiovisual piece aboard a floating cinema that transforms the history of the m.s. Oranje. The piece will be a creative, immersive experience of this famous ocean liner that served as a wartime hospital ship, refuge transport and luxury cruise ship that burst into flames twice and ultimately met its demise at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean."

Image - Sjoerd Martens Music - Thessa Torsing (upsammy) Original footage - The Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision Text by RE:VIVE - Read more

Mixed media on semi-transparent polyester fabrics, video projection, soundscape.
In Waves come to catch us (2018), the research further dissected into a spatial installation. The spectator steps through a light barrier into a completely darkened room, where two semi-transparent photo prints on polyester cloth float one after the other in the middle of the room. An animation is projected on this, based on the same photo and the painted version. In the animation, the image is gradually broken down to black and rebuilt in a color palette based on the cycles of the day. This creates an alternative experience of time. A fan makes the cloths move so that the entire room seems to breathe. The unsightly subject of the photo; a garden with a meter box, a stone separation between path and perk, small palm with hints of buildings in the background, gets a new life and new value that is constantly being built and destroyed. The image thus floats between banality and poetry, between utopian and dystopian city. The combination of all these elements has a hypnotic effect that separates the viewer from the daily environment.

Installation: approx. 75x194x145cm HD color 00:22:51 Stereo

The video Invitation (2018) is a photographic registration, a still digital image brought to life, by printing it on canvas material, painting it with oil paint and then scanning it and animating it with 3d and video material. The video is subtitled with poetry, the sound is a minimalist digitally composed piece of music. The film Invitation can be seen as a sculpture of our legacy. The areas I create are characterized by past human presence, current abandonedness and future uncertainty. The human traces as still life are brought to a new breathing environment through multidisciplinarity and atypical narrative techniques. The manipulated mise-en-scène forms a post-apocalyptic, semi-surreal microcosm that includes physical and non-physical signs of our mortality. This haven is solely palpable and is comparable to past childhood dreams, or dissociation from one’s environment or self.

1000×758 / 4:3 HD color 00:05:08 Stereo

Invitation is a prequel film of the Waves come to catch us series.

Every day we are confronted with more artificiality in our living environment. This habitat is consciously and unconsciously formed by spatial planning and by the traces of passers-by and tourists. We usurp a territory. This habitat is seen by Sjoerd Martens as a mise en scene; a decor that reflects our human activities and a time picture. "In my work, I reshape this decor. Man is absent from this, but due to the immersive nature of the work, I create an experience, a new habitat in which man as a spectator is included. The past presence, the contemporary desolation and the future uncertainty of man are central. The series Photographic Archaeological Research (2017) is commissioned for the Marina Abramović Institute, made after an intense research period on location in Paris. During the investigation, the photographic registrations can be a final stage but also the starting point of the second process; the investigation of the value and analysis of the registrations. View the archive of Photographic archaeological research (2017) at Marina Abramovic Institute