Matthijs Munnik

[NL]

↑Matthijs Munnik "Heliosphere", installation, 2014.

“Heliosphere” is a hypnotic light installation made of water vapour and coloured light, showing intricate patterns of fluid dynamics.  The movement of the vapour is modulated and transformed using air currents, to generate a dynamic composition inspired by the activity of the Sun.

The installation attempts to recapture the visual aesthetic of the processes of solar winds, their eruption from the Sun’s upper atmosphere, bursting out into space, and their transformation into auroras when hitting Earth’s atmosphere. It thus aims to connect the visitor to cosmic weather in a sensorial way, by creating a man-made “natural” phenomena.

Matthijs Munnik is a media artist based in the Hague. Munnik’s expression involves the interaction between light and the senses, and installations are often inspired by scientifically relevant themes. He was recognized as the first winner of the 2013 award for the “International Prize For Emerging Artists In Digital Art”, organised by le Cube in Paris.

Munnik, born in 1989, studied in the ArtScience department of the Royal Academy of Arts in the Hague, until 2011. His breakout installation, “Microscopic Opera”, tracked the projected movements of C. elegans worms and triggered different sounds for their various movements to create an abstract playback “opera” of sound. This work won the first 2013 leCube Prize, and the Artist & Designer 4 Genomics award, which invites artists to collaborate with actual local genomics centers. The piece was also nominated for the Rotterdam Design Award.

Munnik’s other works have included the “Citadels” series, which investigates the hallucinatory response created by flickering light of varying colour and intensity.

Supported by the Mondriaan Funds, Stroom Den Haag, Stichting Stokroos, Stimuleringsfonds.