ZERØ BPM

IMMERSIVE ART EXPERIENCE CONNECTING LIGHT, SOUND, ARCHITECTURE AND REFLECTION

Amsterdam’s hidden brutalist masterpiece Thomaskerk hosts an 18-hour-long multisensory art experience as part of The Spirit of Amsterdam

DIGITAL ART WITH A PHYSICAL EFFECT - SLOWING YOUR HEART RATE DOWN

One of the buzziest programmes at Amsterdam’s new cultural take-over The Spirit of Amsterdam is ZERØ BPM - a fully immersive art experience connecting light art and sonic art with meaning, reflection and meditation. A multi-sensory experience fusing ambient soundscapes with performance rituals in one of Amsterdam’s masterpieces of brutalist architecture, the Thomaskerk building.

The stark and angular building was transformed through a dynamic light art installation - of which the centrepiece was Arbor (tree in Latin) an eight-meter-high digital tree created by Amsterdam and London based light artist Vincent Rang. Inspired by the Dutch Elm tree, Arbor symbolizes the connection between past and future generations, using custom-built software to explore patterns of growth. In a feat of artistic endurance, Rang created a continuous series of unique digital visualisations in light for 18 hours in a row.

“By following the life of this tree, I aim to challenge our perception of time and reconnect us with both our collective histories and futures,” Rang explains. “The Thomaskerk, with its immense and immersive acoustics and sacred architecture, is the perfect setting for such a reflective journey.”

Working alongside Rang was Dutch artist Coen de Haan who co-created the light experience.

Running from 07.30am until 01.30am the following morning, the ZERØ BPM show was anchored throughout by performance artist Bruno Sitton, who hosted a reflective, contemplative ritual at the centre of the art experience. Sitton guided the guests with gentle meditative instructions, encouraging movement and breathing exercises to create a collective, synchronized experience in rhythm with the sonic and light art.

Throughout the day, some of Amsterdam’s leading underground techno DJ’s performed live - creating bespoke sonic experiences with the unique goal of decelerating the audience's heart rates and offering a much-needed counterpoint to the relentless speed of modern life.With a live blend of electronic ambience, calming mindfulness, and euphoric light art, this was a genuinely transformative event.

Stefan Beek, creator of the event and co-founder of The Spirit of Amsterdam sums it up:

“ZERØ BPM is a call to stillness and reconnection with ourselves and the world around us. When we take the time to turn inward, we discover what truly matters.”

The Spirit of Amsterdam brings new energy to the city

The Spirit of Amsterdam is an innovative celebration of Amsterdam’s 750th anniversary. It’s a cultural take-over offering the chance to experience some of the city’s historic locations in a new and radically meaningful way, through a plethora of art forms, with a forward-thinking programme of music, arts, cultural innovation, club culture, social initiatives and modern-day rituals.

Running through day and night, the festival brings modern energy and edge to spaces normally hidden behind closed doors with an innovative programme of installations, performances, music and events - elevated by exciting, non-traditional forms of fine art. From site specific installations and projections to light art, sound art, and even olfactory art, this is fine art reimagined for a digital future.

LINK TO IMAGES photographed by Aileen de Ruijter

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More about ZERØ BPM

The concept behind ZERØ BPM is simple: to slow down our heart rates, offering a much- needed counterpoint to the relentless speed of modern and digital life. Across four timeslots the 18-hour experience was hosted and co-organized by four key movers of the Amsterdam scene: Orphic, Radio Radio, Ratherlost and Terra. Fourteen leading techno artists like Jeans, Woody92, Luna Ludmila, Mirella Kroes & Shoal, who usually fuel the dancefloor with high- energy beats, shifted gears and invited participants on a meditative journey through deep, introspective soundscapes and ambient music.

More about Arbor

Arbor, meaning tree in Latin, offers a new perspective on time, through the generation of growth structures such as trees, plants and root systems. With these procedurally generated growths, Arbor aims to inspire an experience of time on a larger scale, and in doing so, spark a renewed sense of connection with our collective past and our distant generational future.

Arbor is an artwork that explores growth patterns using a custom built software, and which can generate various unique growths. In this specific installation Rang uses the software to explore various root system growths which are continuously evolving through time.

More about Vincent Rang

Vincent Rang (1989) is an experimental visual artist working primarily with moving image as a medium. He believes in the power of moving image and audio as a door into another world. He explores themes of scale, time experience, natural patterns and symbiosis with audio.His gaze is often directed towards the natural dances of life. He observes, captures and re-arranges these various patterns, from wind patterns, water currents, blooming flowers, landscapes and rock formations, to create abstract audio-visual experiences, offering the viewer enough space to find their own truth and interpretation in the work, and most importantly, to feel them.His latest ongoing project ‘Pillars Of Creation’ focuses around a water-filled aquarium in which he creates a live choreography using various materials such as inks, plants and light, which he captures with a macro camera and then projects it on a large screen, creating mesmerizing larger than life living paintings. This project led to the creation of Home, a live audio-visual show which he performed in Het muziekgebouw aan ’t IJ and the Nxt Museum.