The Model @ Collectie de Groen
For the next three months, New Manhattan is part of The Model: the new exhibition in Arnhem curated by Collectie de Groen. My interactive installation in the show allows you to explore sixty web pages in a city constellation. The digital representation is accompanied by one of the sixty physical scale models made during the New Manhattan crowd sourcing initiative. This model represents the architecture of collectiedegroen.nl.
When you look up the definition of the word “model”, you will find a long list of explanations in all shapes, sizes and meanings. Often recurring is the sentence: “a model is a schematic or simplified representation of reality.” Which reality is never stated, since reality has many faces and is seen differently by everyone. Is a model a schematic representation of reality? Does the classical model, the nude, represent a simplified representation of reality? That would make life a lot easier. No model is the same and the reality of models is a lot more complicated. In the world of artists and models one ends up in a labyrinth where the model is always slightly different. The idea of creating an exhibition that clearly shows the relationship between the models and the artists is therefore an illusion. Forget that cohesion. The only certainty in this exhibition is that what you are looking at is in fact a model. A wooden model, a written model, a thinking model, a computer model, a mathematical model, a dream model, a light / shadow model, a moving model, a sound model, a 3-d printed model, a paper model, or plastic, everything is possible. Peter Jordaan and Marjolein de Groen
