Emanuel Engelen

"Almost Magic Carpet" was a collaborative project between Minus Plus Minus, Low & Bonar, and me that pushed the boundaries of material innovation. Working alongside Minus Plus Minus, we engineered a remarkable "smart material" by integrating Low & Bonar's Colback® sheets with nitinol, or memory metal. Our innovation involved crafting geometric shapes from the Colback® sheets, embedding pre-shaped nitinol wires within them, similar to hinges, allowing the structures to dynamically change shape when heating the wires. This experiment was prominently featured at Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven, showcasing the transformative potential of these materials and their applications in design and functionality.

"Database” is an ongoing project focused on curating a personal, analog repository of my life's memories. It encompasses descriptions of experiences, detailed characterizations of individuals I encounter during these moments, and location data complete with maps depicting where these experiences unfold. All this information is meticulously printed and displayed on a table designed specifically for this purpose, allowing for a comprehensive view of the interrelationships between the three primary data collections: experiences, people, and locations. Each data point is evaluated based on its emotional significance, contributing to a nuanced representation of my life's narrative. The collections of individuals and locations are visually presented through two data visualizations positioned above the exhibition table, offering an interactive and engaging perspective. This work has been showcased in several exhibitions, notably as part of a solo exhibition at the Museum Arnhem. During this exhibition, the continuous enrichment of the collections was conducted as a performative act. I made weekly visits to the museum, adding new experiences, person descriptions, and locations to the database, illustrating the ongoing nature of the project and its intimate connection with my evolving life experiences. During my weekly visits to the museum, I had to be accompanied by a security guard to access my own artwork, which I found to be an intriguing aspect of this performance."

The 'Demon of Laplace' stands as an analog algorithm manifested in the form of a playable board game. Its purpose is to forecast future scenarios based on an initial dataset, derived from the extensive data pool created for the 'Database' project. This personalized dataset serves as the fundamental input for the 'Demon of Laplace' algorithm, empowering the player to calculate potential future experiences. The process of predicting one's future was executed as a performative act in week-long session. Each gaming round involved calculating a single new experience, demanding approximately half an hour per session. Throughout this immersive week-long performance playing the board game, I found myself experiencing moments of envy towards my future self, often grappling with boredom and physical discomfort in my knees. The artwork is titled "The Demon of Laplace" derived from a thought experiment by Pierre-Simon Laplace in 1814. The concept posits that if something or someone, the "demon", knows the precise location and movement of every atom and is sufficiently intelligent, it could completely compute both the future and the past. An underlying question arises about whether the universe is causally deterministic. Moreover, it challenges the notion of free will.