Loading Senses
BlindRom is an on-screen mayhem of stimuli and emotions. It opens a portal to a chaotic and confusing world where literature, photography, philosophy, politics, techno music, sex and drugs that hover in an never-ending rave. It is an invitation to a floating space beyond the senses. BlindRom gets you confused or even angry. It makes you think, dance and laugh. All you need to do is let yourself go and discover a new world where there is no right or wrong, good or bad. When a door shuts, another one always opens!
BlindRom v0.9, The Prototype
BlindRom by Gerald van der Kaap was published in 1993 by The Blind Trust, and is considered the first multimedia interactive CD-ROM. BlindRom received international recognition for its radical and innovative design. It won first prize at the VideoFest that was staged in conjuction with the Berlinale in 1995, as “an anarchic intervention into interactive technology, a kaleidoscopic and fragmentary work in which the personal and social combine.” It has also been featured in many exhibitions, such as Burning the Interface at the Melbourne Museum of Contemporary art in 1996. Hidden- or even forbidden- rooms and buttons, anti-menus, blind paths construct an immersive and stimulating world where nothing is what it seems. A fusion of art, mayhem and music.
The Chill Cave
Alongside BlindRom, this exhibition featured another work by Gerald van der Kaap The Chill Cave. Created in 1992, The Chill Cave is an interactive installation where the senses come together in a very different multimedia experience. Lying on a comfort bed and with their heads in a tube, the visitors were presented with a panorama of moving images leading to total relaxation and escape of reality. A very intimate and unique feeling of total hoverty.
Gerald van der Kaap
Gerald van der Kaap was born in 1959 in Enschede, the Netherlands. From 1978 to 1980 he studied at the Academie voor Beeldende Kunsten St. Joost in Breda and contributed since then in key moments of media art. Using photography as his starting point, his work constantly explores the possibilities and limits of digital and media art through digital photography, video art, installations, the internet, TV shows and live performances. His work has been exhibited, among others at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, Museum Folkwang, Centre Pompidou, Museum Boijmans van Beuningen and the Art Institute of Chicago. Alongside his artistic practice, Gerald van der Kaap was a professor of new media at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam from 1992 to 2002.
Artist Tours
Mediamatic offered exclusive tours during the ‘All Senses Operative’ exhibition. Pioneer Gerald Van Der Kaap guided the public right inside two of his iconic artworks from the early 90s.
