Mirroring the Everyday in Contemporary Dutch Architecture, Photography and Design

Provocative, experimental, refreshing, dry, brazen and even crude were common descriptions for the designs in the exhibition Reality Machines. The young Dutch architects, industrial and graphic designers, photographers and fashion designers assembled here could not be classified under a single common denominator. However, what they did have in common was their minimalist, pragmatic and often ironic reinterpretation of our everyday reality. All the designers represented in Reality Machines worked with a similar conceptual design approach. The outcome was an anomalous usage of existing forms, materials and systems. The resulting images and objects were easily recognized for what they were, but on closer examination proved to deviate from conventions in various subtle ways. The designs presented in Reality Machines posed questions about the distinction between the real and the unreal, and about the artificiality of our daily surroundings.

By combining various disciplines in a single exhibition, we aimed to remind our public that the designed environment does not concern architecture alone but is much broader in scope. Reality Machines explored that scope.

The following designers and photographers were represented in the exhibition: Arons & Gelauff architecten, BAR, Aziz, Jop van Bennekom, Jurgen Bey, Anuschka Blommers/Niels Schumm, Thomas Buxó, Elspeth Diederix, Ineke Hans, Juul Hondius, Richard Hutten, Experimental Jetset, Saskia van Drimmelen, Tom Frantzen, Pascale Gatzen, Hella Jongerius, Juurlink en Geluk, goodwill, T©H&M, Niels Klavers & Astrid van Engelen, KesselsKramer, Erik Jan Kwakkel / Peter van der Jagt / Arnout Visser, Lofvers/Bergen/Kolpa, Maxwan, Maureen Mooren & Daniël van der Velden, MVRDV, Next architects, NL Architects, Viviane Sassen, Martine Stig, Schie 2.0, SeARCH, Alexander van Slobbe, Oscar Suleyman, Thonik, Marcel Wanders, West 8.