Mike Rijnierse

Mike Rijnierse (1974) is an artist, performer and educator working in the fields of light, sound and architecture. He is intrigued by sensory experience, whether visual, acoustic, spatial, cross-sensory and synesthesia, creating sculptures, installations, performances and public interventions, Rijnierse has exhibited his works internationally throughout various contexts, from media art festivals, to galleries, museums and interventions in the public space. As a docent since 2009 at Design Art Technology department of ArtEZ, Arnhem, Rijnierse has devised the course Design of Instruments, where students research and create instruments that transcend technological domains, exploring new and obsolete media. Over decades Rijnierse has developed a meticulous study on the interaction between light, pigment and the retina. He gave concrete form to his discoveries in installations, projections and light designs with the series CYMRGB and the luminous sculptures such as Lumokinese and Cube. These works allude to optical instruments and devices such as the Laterna magica, kaleidoscopes and the zoetrope that are considered to be precursors of film, animation and digital media. Mike Rijnierse is not guided by nostalgia, his interest is in questioning the current production of image and examining visual experience, since devices and instruments of today no longer show their process and therefore work as ‘black boxes’. By showing the process of production of light, color, source and shadow, he illustrates how illusion and vision are intertwined. Rijnierse’s works Relief, Soundman and Piano / Forte explore the acoustic domain. In fact, the phenomenon of echo and reflection is a recurring theme in the work of Mike Rijnierse. As architect Juhani Pallasmaa wrote in ‘The Eyes of the Skin’: “Sight isolates, whereas sound incorporates; vision is directional, sound is omni-directional. The sense of sight implies exteriority, whereas sound creates an experience of interiority. I regard an object, but sound approaches me; the eye reaches, but the ear receives. Buildings do not react to our gaze, but they do return our sound back to our ears.” Another facet of Rijnierse’s work are his major interventions in public space. Through his works THX: INT’L (landing strip), Station to Station, KLOK, And 5,4,3,2,1…Lift-Off, Rijnierse evokes attention towards perceptive experience, ‘using the city as a vast playground and field for sound experiments.’ (Regina Debatty)