Woven Studio
About
Amsterdam based Woven Studio is exploring new forms of science communication. In high end and low barrier ways they weave together science and culture to provoke thought and wonderment.
Together with world-leading universities, scientists, research groups, institutions, museums and architects they give research reach beyond the lab and science magazines, by creating art installations and other forms of unique communications around the latest scientific discoveries. In their latest project, a collaboration with European Space Agency (ESA) and Leiden University, they uncover the mysterious nature of dark matter.
Woven Studio holds a fellowship at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Founder of Woven Studio, artist Thijs Biersteker, is an award-winning artist that exhibits his eco-digital installations all over the world.
They have worked amongst others with Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, Prof. Stefano Mancuso, European Space Agency, Prof.dr. H. Hoekstra, Science Gallery, Daily Paper, Technical University Delft, International Laboratory of Plant Ecology and Artis.
What is an Alternative Thinker for you?
We think an Alternative Thinker is someone that transcends the preconceived systems we live in. For us this is fueled by science as a starting point to look beyond siloed systems. By weaving together different disciplines, viewpoints and materials, answers and solutions can be found for important societal topics.
What are you bringing forward in your work?
In our collaborative works with science we focus on the most thought-provoking facts within the field and create ways to make them accessible to a larger public, convinced that the more accessible information is, the better our civilisation will be. Our goal is to help groundbreaking research that determines the course of our lives on this planet reach into culture, turning the scientific abstraction into something that connects to our senses, allowing people to emotionally connect to the work so they can better value the topic and understand the urgency of it.
Why did you highlight this/these specific project(s) below?
Tell us what your vision of the new world – post COVID-19 – is like?
During Covid19 we have seen how science can direct society into a healthier and more cohesive version. How facts are keeping us healthy and how quick change can work. We also see how the lack of communication skills feed the wrong emotions, provoke the wrong actions. For us in the field of new-science-communication, we are seeing how people turn away from facts due to cognitive overload and can’t wait to explore ways to reach them again.
What are the questions you have been thinking of for years and never
had the time to answer?
Through our work with the latest scientific discoveries we are often surprised by questions we wouldn’t even have thought existed, immersing us in completely new topics on a regular basis.
Who would you like to collaborate with in terms of brands / institutions / property developers / other Alternative Thinkers?
We want to collaborate with other initiatives that share our vision to weave science and culture together to create a better informed world.
Dark Distortions, 2020
Uncovering Dark Matter
Dark Distortions, by Woven Studio is made in a collaboration with artist Thijs Biersteker, Cosmologist Henk Hoekstra of Leiden University and European Space Agency (ESA) is inspired by Euclid, a forthcoming ESA mission to study the mysterious nature of dark matter and dark energy, which is due to launch in mid-2022.
Dark matter is thought to account for 85% of the matter in the universe, but it is still a big mystery what dark matter actually is. It has never been seen directly. Dark Distortions consists of a constellation of moving lenses, which bend light just as large concentrations of dark matter act as gravitational lenses. The constellation is surrounded by layers of lenses on lenses, which represent the way in which dark matter is thought to accumulate in a fractal-like pattern. The work uncovers the unseeable nature of dark matter in front of your eyes.
Dark Distortions is commissioned by Science Gallery Dublin.
‘Dark Distortions’ by Woven Studio
‘Dark Distortions’ by Woven Studio