PING
Gijs van Bon
PING by Gijs van Bon is a light artwork in which messages travel from one light point to another. In the past, smoke signals, drums, and fire were used to communicate over long distances. PING gives this method of sending messages a modern form. Along a 150-meter line stand 200 light points that pass signals to one another. Light and sound thus move through the park: sometimes fast and powerful, sometimes soft and almost like a whisper. Together, the light points form a living chain that surrounds you as a visitor and sets you in motion again and again.
Audio tour
About the artist
Visual artist Gijs van Bon continuously constructs art installations and exhibits them from the Netherlands to distant foreign lands. His installations are often technical in nature and possess a powerful autonomous core, complemented by theatrical knowledge. Virtually all of his work has a strong focus on a specific action performed by a mechanism or setup. His goal is to construct the action of the work in such a way that the viewer experiences the action differently. Sometimes by significantly slowing down time, sometimes by changing the context of the action. Always by using technology to accomplish the action.
A combination of his studies at the Design Academy in Eindhoven and at the HKU University of the Arts Utrecht (scenography), and his own ongoing technical research, results in exciting and constantly innovative work in which concept, viewer, and technology play the leading role.
He creates both small works (such as his multiple "Klosklok," which stands in the office of the Minister of Education and Culture, among others) and large artistic installations. An example of the latter is PING, a light and sound artwork consisting of 250 beacons. Sand writer Skryf, one of Van Bon's creations, has currently written in 24 languages in 31 countries, including Moscow, New York, Brisbane, Berlin, London, Trondheim, Shenzhen, and Ansan (Korea).
Credits
- Sound
- Maud Weijtens
