|
|
NOWHERE by Frank van der Salm HERE NOW! |
After months of closed museums we are happy to finally announce the opening of NOWHERE – Imagining The Global City by photographer Frank van der Salm, a Paradox production in collaboration with the Nederlands Fotomuseum.
The central theme of Frank van der Salm’s work is urban development as an expression of our time. Over the last 25 years, Van der Salm has travelled the world, focusing on urban landscape in its broadest sense. Aestheticism plays a major role in his work. It is the means by which he criticizes the urban world we now inhabit. NOWHERE, bringing together Frank van der Salm’s body of work from the past 25 years, is composed of two radically different parts. The Artificial Intelligence-driven installation, featuring all of his 241 images, is overwhelming and dynamic. It visualises the links between the works, based on their underlying meanings. The images themselves are immaterial. Behind the video wall lies the traditional, quiet museum world: the sphere of the ‘authentic’ works, each with it’s specific size and appearance. They are displayed in isolation from each other. Profusion is replaced by austerity and concentration, with no more than fourteen physical photographs and video works on show at any time. Here, Frank van der Salm’s aesthetic acts as a vehicle for his critical attitude towards the built environment.
Artificial Intelligence as (assistent) curator?
Identifying and defining critical meaning within an oeuvre has traditionally been the job of the curator. In this exhibition, curator Bas Vroege shares that role with another player of our time: artificial intelligence (AI). Computers use AI to identify patterns in raw data and take autonomous decisions based on them. NOWHERE adresses the question what new patterns can the application of artificial intelligence reveal within a photographic oeuvre created over a period of 25 years. Frank van der Salm tagged each of the 241 images in his oeuvre using a total of 41 terms, ranging from ‘24/7’ to ‘alienation’. He then gave them a score between 0 and 1. After this, AI researcher Gjorgji Strezoski (UvA) fed the images and accompanying data into the University of Amsterdam’s supercomputer. Working in collaboration with data visualisers RNDR and composer Henry Vega, we present the results of this experiment on a video wall of urban dimensions. The installation allows the viewer to tour Frank van der Salm’s motifs within an imaginary data space.
The exhibition will be on show at the Nederlands Fotomuseum in Rotterdam from 2 July – 3 October 2021.You can book your ticket on the website of the museum.
NOWHERE – Imagining the Global City is a Paradox production created in collaboration with the Nederlands Fotomuseum. NOWHERE is sponsored by the Creative Industries Fund NL, the Mondriaan Fund, Fonds 21, Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds (Breeman Talle Fund) and Stichting Zabawas.
|
| Book a ticket |
|
| |
 |
The Collection Illuminated by… Artificial Intelligence |
In the exhibition series entitled The Collection Illuminated by…, the Nederlands Fotomuseum invites successive guest curators to make their own personal selections from the museum’s rich and varied collection. For the eighth exhibition in the series, the ‘guest curator’ brought in by the Nederlands Fotomuseum is smart software capable of selecting images independently on the basis of specific instructions.
The instructions – also known as an ‘algorithm’ – were created by Frank van der Salm taking specific features of his own work as the starting point. In an interactive installation combining Van der Salm’s oeuvre with the rich Collection of the Nederlands Fotomuseum and a selection of images from Instagram, the algorithm trained based on the data input by Frank van der Salm is applied. With this presentation we investigate the important role artificial intelligence can play in collecting and selecting photography. Who decides what terms should be used in searches and captions, and based on what criteria? Should we be concerned about who trains the algorithms and with what intentions? The algorithm as curator, as archivist and as guardian of our online photo albums… Is this the future?
The exhibition will be on show at the Nederlands Fotomuseum in Rotterdam from 2 July 2021 – 9 January 2022.
|
| Learn more |
 |
NOWHERE - The Book |
NOWHERE – Imagining The Global City collects photographer Frank van der Salm’s work of the past 25 years. The image of a consumer-oriented, imaginary metropolis rises from this book, designed by Irma Boom. Images – sometimes upside down – question each other about the reality they represent. Together, they form the image of a city that, all of a sudden, seems to be simultaneously everywhere and nowhere, yet: here now.
Textual contributions by Shumon Basar, Aaron Betsky and Urs Stahel, link Frank van der Salm’s oeuvre to the world of design, architecture, urban development, art and photography.
“Cities of dreams: a Dutch master reimagines the metropolis – in pictures” – The Guardian
The book received a four star review in De Volkskrant: “NOWHERE forces you to think. And that can effortlessly go hand in hand with unbridled viewing pleasure, because Van der Salm amply provides that too.”
|
| Buy now |
|
|
Events
2 Jul, 3 Aug, 7 Sept > 3x14 works |
 |
|
All 241 works that embody the oeuvre of Frank van der Salm are part of the AI powered main projection of NOWHERE. Viewers wishing to see all the physical photo as well as video works however, are invited to return. The initial selection of 14 works on display at the opening on 2 July will be replaced on 3 August and 7 September. A total of 38 physical works will be exhibited over the entire period. Works not on display are stored in a tower on the main square of the exhibition. read more |
Visual Narratives
 |
| The Role of AI |
NOWHERE will be accompanied by a series of visual narratives, elaborating on the roles of the various creative partners in the project, ranging from spatial designer Tiago Rosado, composer Henry Vega to data visualiser Boyd Rotgans. The first episode with AI-scientist Gjorgji Strezoski, diving deeper into the use of AI, is now online. watch here |
|
|
|
