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Artist Thijs Zweers (1986)
Title Dance Dance Revolution V
Year 2019
Material Charcoal and neon on wood
About the work
What you see here is a combination of two materials that are not often combined: charcoal, a traditional and natural material, in combination with neon tubes, which are reminiscent of computer screens due to their blue-purple, glowing colour. The work’s title refers to a Japanese game from the 1990s. Players must step on coloured arrows corresponding to arrows on a screen in the right rhythm. As in the game, in this work the boundaries between the physical and virtual worlds blur.
About the artist
Thijs Zweers spent much of his youth gaming and became fascinated by the digital world. In his works, he connects the real world and the world of pixels and luminous screens. He designs digital landscapes and takes screenshots of plants, trees and bushes from video games. He then translates these digital forms from nature into charcoal drawings, which he applies by hand to canvas or wood. He then adds neon tubes, often in sinuous, organic shapes, which refer back to the digital environment in which the creative process began. In 2010, he graduated from ArtEZ University of the Arts in Arnhem.
In the collection
Acquired in 2019. De Nederlandsche Bank acquired Dance Dance Revolution V because this work raises questions about the increasing impact of digital technology on our lives.