In conversation with contemporary artist Boris Acket
Boris Acket is a contemporary artist and composer whose multidisciplinary work spans sound, light, and motion, challenging the conventional boundaries of art and music. Initially emerging from electronic music and club culture, Acket has carved out a unique space where sound art, installations, and performance environments intersect. His work blurs the lines between traditional exhibitions and the sensory experiences of nightlife, offering audiences an opportunity to reflect on the relationship between control and surrender in the natural and constructed worlds.
In recent years, Boris Acket’s practice has evolved to explore humanity’s relationship with nature, particularly through sound. Influenced by his encounters with acoustic ecologist Gordon Hempton and sociologist Riyan van den Born in 2020, Acket has begun recontextualizing natural elements in his work, creating spaces of sanctuary and reflection that often take on a ritualistic quality. His installations invite viewers to engage deeply with nature, but also serve as subtle commentaries on dystopian futures, suggesting complex, often conflicted, interactions with our environment.
The way your visuals metamorphosize is absolutely compelling. The kinetics are mesmerizing! Would you give us some insight on how you conceptualize your artistic expression?
The start of my artistic processes really differ from project to project. Sunbeam, Captured was conceived while I literally saw a sunbeam hitting a body of water after an epic rainstorm in the middle of a buildup; a moment in time I wanted to capture, essentially stopping time from happening. The collaboration with Sabine Marcelis then fully shifted the colouring technique and easthetic of the project.
Kinetic sculpture ‘The Bird Of A Thousand Voices’ was inspired by a project of befriended director Ruben van Leer and jazz pianist Tigran Hamasyan, essentially by a firebird from an Armenian folktale. The iconic shape though was chosen because of a practical vantage point: a lack of rigging points in a concert hall gave way for the design of two controllable wings, inserting Da Vinci’s heritage in the project; I love to flow with these projects and trust in the processes and choices along the way, they breathe life into the different techniques that I use.
Generally speaking I work from fundamental elements I want to explore, whether it’s light, sound, movement, or even more ephemeral ideas like consciousness, the philosophy of time or perception. I think of my work as an evolving system-an interplay of elemental forces and technology. The visual metamorphosis you see is a reflection of these processes meeting the digital world, where technology is not a separate entity but rather a medium to reveal the underlying structures. I allow the work to take on a life of its own, with each piece becoming a living ecosystem that grows and changes organically over time.
The environment in which you execute your installations must be quite a consideration. Do you find a space first and then work on an idea or is it the other way around?
This question makes my think about a recent project I did in Hungary. The organizers of the exhibition asked me to exhibit Einder / Wind in an enormous abandoned Turbine hall in an ex Soviet city near to the capitol of Budapest.
The work really hit when you entered the space. When I heard the story about the building, and the way it was abandoned, I felt there was a lot of pain inside. It felt like within these concrete walls this piece of cloth was the freest moving thing to ever occupy it. The poetry added by the space to this freely moving cloth was so meaningful to the experience of the work and so different to other iterations.
That being said, I like to transform spaces, but it really depends. Sometimes, a space will dictate the idea. The architecture, history or energy of a location can spark something unique-something that could only exist within that specific environment. Other times, I have a concept or a feeling in mind and seek out the right space to bring it to life. My installations are symbiotic with their environments, so the two always influence one another. It’s a dance between the idea and the space-both evolving together to create the final piece. I am excited to show my work in very traditional museum spaces next year, as well as in larger than life abandoned factory buildings.
What have been some of your favorite and standout performances? What makes them special to you?
One of my favorite moments was to have my solo show in Berlin together with friends Sven and Clara Sauer of Wir im Ra um, a nd I a m so tha nkful tha t I could present this with themI.t was scary, to build 9 works spanning over 5 floors, but it really paid of. It was so very nice to see the smaller works thrive. A strategy of mine was always to make things bigger. In this exhibition though a small turning light I made together with pianist Jeep Beving and composer Maarten Vos was one of the favorites and people just watched this small light forever.
An integral part of my practice is to collaborate and share, and the last couple of years have been very special through these colla bora tions. I got the chance to collaborate and work with close friends like Heleen Blanken, and Lumus Instruments and with larger then life inspirators such as acoustic ecologist Gordon Hempton a nd designer Sabine Marcelis.Next to that I got to contribute to a big production of Sub Global who I really admire.
When it comes to the music, how do you determine which elements are necessary before a piece is completed?
Music is an integral part of my installations. I was a musician before anything else. I like to see my installations as closed loop instruments in which everything influences everything. In other words, the sound is the light is the movement. La tely, I love when the sound comes from the material or the machine that is actually present in the installation.I recently made Dioptrique. A work in which the material slowly disintegrates.
This work embodies a closed loop of creation and destruction. As the material slowly degrades, more details emerge in the projections. Each instance of damage generates sound, creating an unsettling atmosphere of decay. The constant hum of engines subtly underscores the piece, revealing the mechanical underpinning of what appears to be a natural and poetic refractive result.
I’m not looking for musical perfection but rather harmony or contrast between the sound, light, and motion. The piece is complete when all the elements-visual, auditory, spatial-speak to each other in a way that feels like they’re breathing together.
What is your philosophy behind perceiving your work? It goes without saying that viewing your work from a farther point is seriously awe-inspiring since you can see the whole performance come to life. But what about getting up close and personal?
Gordon Hempton, an acoustic ecologist I worked with, has this great listening exercise to make you reconnect with your auditory surroundings. As you become older in life, you forget how to listen as a kid. The brain is in the way: it acts as a filter. It makes you listen to ‘important’ things, to alarms, cars, the human voice and music.
To ‘bypass’ this filter, Gordon suggests to hold a microphone to the world. A microphone he says, doesn’t have a brain like us. If you listen to the microphone through headphones and put the world a little louder the filter disappears, and the world comes to you again in full force, full audio, without any filter present.
I see my works in very different ways, and I think the way you perceive them can be different even from day to day. But I like to see them as this microphone, that re establishes your relationship to something that you already know, that you see everyday, but this encounter puts your perception of this phenomenom in new light, provokes a new kind of curiosity. When explored together the works provoke conversations and are able to connect people to each other, a memory or a new idea.
At the same time, and this is an important thought experiment I often do, these works are quite dystopic. How is it that you want to interact with this representation of nature, how are we so naturally connected to things that represent, but are in fact very synthetic. I am deeply fascinated by this relationship of perception between the utopian and dystopian.
How important is having a team and people who believe in your vision?
A team is crucial. My work often involves complex systems-technical, visual, and auditory-that require specialized skills. I am lucky to work with Marijn Versnel on a lot of our instruments and machines, and I’m fortunate to collaborate with people who not only have the technical expertise but also understand the deeper philosophy behind my work. We have a lively studio environment with close friend and director Jerom Fischer next door as well as the earlier mentioned Lumus Instruments.
I love to work with people from other disciplines, and other artists. I recently had an in depth collaboration with Tina Farifteh who really challenged me to see new layers in the concepts surrounding sublime experiences, and themes like home and roots. Scientists and philosophers open doors to think differently, to approach differently. Encounters with writers make your worldview tumble. One of my favourite discoveries is a conversation between philosopher Henri Bergson and physicist Einstein: look that up, a gem in finding out new ways to look to our perception of time.
I feel very secure about the team and people I surround myself today, I am also working with a new agent from New York, Anne Verhallen. It feels like it is becoming more professional while still maintaining a sort of family situation.
Are you quite drawn to nature? Or organic processes? There is a paramount fluidity to your body of work that is incredibly beautiful to behold.
Central to my work is the interplay between control and surrender. I love how people are wired to unpredictable predictability; grass in the wind, water continuously shaping in new waves and shapes. Ever since one of my first works – an intricate echo system that provided an almost uncontrollable auditory instrument – this interplay is present. An echo system, water, fabric, wind are all filters that you can not control fully. These uncontrollable systems automatically refer to nature as this unpredictable yet predictable repetition is also so present in our natural habitats.
What upcoming projects are you working on? What can we expect from the talented Boris Acket in the future?
I’m super excited about what’s coming up! The most exciting news is that I’ll soon be welcoming a baby into the world, which is a monumental shift in my life. After that, I have some incredible projects lined up, like Mutek Mexico, POST Houston for a 9 month exhibition in the US, Klanglicht Austria, Kikk Festival Belgium, Uncloud Utrecht, Noor Riyadh in Saudi Arabia, an exhibition at Kunsthal Rotterdam, and a large-scale exhibition at Stedelijk Museum Schiedam next year as well as a scenography for incredible choreographers Marne and Imre van Opstal in the Staatsoper, Dresden DE.
I’m diving deeper into research and development, exploring new directions, and I’m eager to do some architectural interventions as well. There’s a lot to look forward to—2025 will be a big year, and you’ll definitely be seeing a lot of me!
Boris Acket: https://www.borisacket.nl/
