Standplaats Vlieland

Artist residency hosted by Into The Great Wide Open, Hi-Lo and Museum Tromp’s Huys

Standplaats Vlieland

My research on Vlieland focuses on the relationship between humans and nature in a landscape entirely shaped by the tides. The Wadden Sea shows us, every day, the cyclical character of the world: water recedes and returns, sandbanks appear and disappear, birds and people follow each other in temporary patterns. At the same time, this landscape is under pressure from human decisions: climate change, gas extraction, fisheries, tourism, and pollution alter its ecological balance. The Wadden Sea is always in motion, but that movement is not always self-evident or positive. By working with real-time tidal data from Rijkswaterstaat, I aim to translate these rhythms and transformations into an installation that not only embodies the cyclical nature of the Wadden but also makes the vulnerability of this ecosystem tangible.

For the next six weeks I will be living on the island, carrying out my research directly on site.

In humans, the biological clock mainly follows a circadian rhythm of about 24 hours, tuned to the cycle of day and night. This clock, located in the brain, regulates processes such as sleep, alertness, and hormone release. In marine animals like shrimp and cockles, however, there is also a tidal clock, which runs on the rhythm of the tides (around 12.5 hours). This allows them to adjust feeding or protective behaviors to changes in water levels. It shows how biological rhythms adapt to the specific environment of each species.

These observations have led me to consider the tide itself as a kind of clock. My aim is to create an installation that is guided by the circatidal cycle. The work will breathe with the sea, responding to forces beyond human control, and in doing so, propose another way of experiencing time: fluid, adaptive, and inseparable from the environment that sustains it.

Anthropocentrism places humans at the center, turning nature into backdrop and resource; a worldview driving both climate crisis and our growing sense of disconnection. Yet the tidal rhythms resist such separation: the flow of water reminds us that we are not apart, but always already entangled in larger forces.

Jellyfish embody an alternative way of being: they live almost indistinguishable from the water around them, ‘like water in water’. They suggest a mode of existence where the boundary between organism and environment dissolves, an image that contrasts sharply with human fantasies of separateness and control.

Running a first test with motors triggered by real-time waterlevels

And a first testmodel for a wave-mechanism

A first test of my wave mechanism worked best as a horizontal piece, seen from above. To bring the wave vertical, I drew on my animation background and explored how to “animate” a flat surface in the physical world. The result is simple: twelve wooden planks hang from threads, their other ends fixed to a rotating latch on a small motor. As the latch turns, it pulls each thread in sequence and creates the illusion of a moving wave.

I like how the circle with the latch recalls the clock we are so familiar with. Since I want to use the circatidial rhythm for this installation, the mechanism inspired a new idea: a tidal wave that reveals and conceals parts of the work.

Testmodel Kinetic Wave II

WIP of a model made of wood (a bit sturdier material than cardboard). A small motor drives the pointer. Next challenge: I have to find a way to attach the threads to the tip and still be able to rotate freely.

Testing the new bottle-cap-tip with threads and screws to keep tension on the threads, and IT WORKS. I have to admid that I’ve reached a point in this project where I’m balancing between ‘I have no idea what I’m doing’ and ‘this could actually work’.

When testing that previous model I'd found that the pointer was too flexible. So I made a new one of wood and fixed it on the motor axis. I also replaced the spinning tip. For that, I used a bottle cap that I found on the beach earlier today, drilled tiny holes in the sides to attach the threads.

And after testing this mechanism over and over again, until it finally worked, I realised that I was building a machine. A machine that visualises the movement of the tides, triggered by real-time water data. Not a machine built to speed things up, but one that reveals the slowness of the tidal cycle. You have to observe it for six hours to witness a single wave passing by.

The machine became the ultimate symbol of progress during the Industrial Revolution. For centuries, muscle, wind, and water had powered human life, but steam engines, factories, and later electricity took over. This brought unprecedented growth and prosperity, yet also a hidden cost: massive burning of fossil fuels and an accelerating wave of pollution and emissions. The machine that once promised liberation from labor is now deeply entangled in today’s climate crisis.

The machine has long been the emblem of human progress: created to accelerate, to make us more productive, to bend time to our will. Precisely because of this symbolism, I began to wonder what would happen if a machine did the opposite. What if, instead of speeding up, it slowed us down? This thought opened the way to machines that do not dominate nature, but translate its rhythms into the familiar language of technology so that we might see, feel, and understand what usually remains hidden.

The tides themselves behave like a stage curtain: opening and closing with each cycle. At high tide the curtain is drawn, the water covers the stage, and what lies beneath remains hidden. At low tide the curtain slowly opens, revealing the full landscape; mudflats, birds, seals, traces of life that moments before were invisible. My wave machine mirrors this movement. It acts as a kinetic curtain: closed in one moment, expansive in the next.

And that brought me to a new idea: to see the Wadden Sea, with its tides, as a theater. The tidal wave itself becomes the curtain; opening and closing, concealing and revealing, and at the same time the director that sets the rhythm of the play. I can watch the tidal landscape for hours without a moment of boredom; like a slow, endless film. This principle forms the basis of my installation: a kinetic theater made of machines that imitate natural elements and translate them into human language: technology. Together they perform a kind of landscape drama, a theater played with and by the environment, constantly responding to the forces of nature.

From (puppet)theatre, I knew the classical five-act structure: exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, resolution. When I placed this alongside the tidal curve, I realised how closely they mirror each other. Both follow the same arc of tension and release. By merging these two worlds, I found the basis for the Kinetic Wadden Theater: a landscape unfolding like a play, directed by the tide.

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Wad is, is nu (ULTRAKORT)