Foundation (2020 – 2022) Jasper de Beijer
4k Video – 9′ 52
https://youtu.be/Pc-8w8IM1O4
In 2020, Jasper de Beijer (1973) followed a Mondriaan Fund residency at the Pompgemaal in Den Helder. The estate around the water pumping station has some resemblance of an island, a secluded place over which the world seems to have no influence. The artist experienced his isolation as a form of powerlessness and being lost; his period in residence coincided with the start of the pandemic.
The artist converted the pumping station into a self-designed castle; partly as a physical film set, partly as 3D space in the computer. He then used this computer model to convert the site and building into a classic estate. Because the Pompgemaal and its CGI version (Generated Computer Imaging) fit seamlessly together, De Beijer was able to combine his on-site recordings with his own version of the estate. The aristocrat tries to maintain the grounds as best as possible, to make contact with the outside world and to keep (imaginary) intruders out. He uses his dated military experience to do patrols and man lookouts. From his point of view, the estate is one of the last places in Europe that still belong to the old world – and he
will do everything he can to preserve this. He tries to make contact with the outside world via a refurbished radio transmitter, but his methods and calling codes have become obsolete.
In the short film Foundation, the white man has become a relic who thinks his own world is crumbling while he tries to maintain an idealized world that has long since disappeared.
Foundation is a prelude to the artist’s first solo at dudokdegroot gallery in September 2024, I Have Seen the Future’.
In ‘I Have Seen the Future’, de Beijer extrapolated the idea of ‘Foundation’ and built an imaginary world based on the visions of the future from the 60s and 70s of his youth; Utopian wishful thinking at the time accumulated into a harsh confrontation with the excesses of the emerging consumer society. By clinging to the illusion of a glorious future, the residents of this ideal model society have ended up in a world where they desperately cling to an unworkable utopia that is constantly overtaken by reality.
