Enter New Babylon

About

Enter New Babylon is a Mixed Reality Installation with four worlds, where the audience can experience a contemporary reflection on New Babylon. New Babylon is a project that Dutch artist Constant Nieuwenhuys (1920-2005) created in the sixties. With New Babylon Constant formulates a vision of the future. The project comprises a multitude of sketches, drawings, texts, models and constructions proposing a futuristic city in which the means of production becomes collective property and the nomadic, creative and playful human takes the center stage. The inhabitants are invited to discover and enact their playful human nature.

Video artist Dennis Molema has transformed Constant’s Grote gele sector (1967) into a digital 3D model to serve a virtual location for Enter New Babylon. Originally, Grote gele sector is a three-dimensional scale model.

Six writers from Poetry Circle Nowhere spent three months working with six designers from the HKU. Led by Joris Weijdom of the HKU, they experimented with the possibilities of virtual and mixed reality and developed four completely different experiences, reflecting on New Babylon.

Can these young makers still dream of a future or does every dream turn into a dystopia under the weight of today’s challenges? This was the question with which Kim van der Horst, stepdaughter of the artist, director of Fondation Constant and initiator, started the project. The answer is four worlds, each with their own reflection on the future.

Scenographer Guus van Geffen built an installation in which the visitor experiences the worlds and subsequently also becomes a spectator of other visitors who enter the VR worlds.

In July 2021 presenter Lucas de Man visits the VR installation Enter New Babylon and talks to the young designers and writers of the four virtual worlds based on Constant’s New Babylon.

Echo’s van het vergeten | Echoes of Oblivion

Design: Aina Mora Roca | Text: Steff Geelen | Photos: film stills Echoes of Oblivion (1-3), Anne Harbers (4 and 6), Moon Saris (5)

What happens when you step into that boat and let yourself be guided?

We willen onze dagen niet vullen met spijt | We Don’t Want to Fill Our Days with Regrets

Design: Morgan Henry and Bianca Lurvink | Text: Jasper Albinus and Roziena Salihu | Photos: film stills We Don’t Want to Fill Our Days With Regret, Anne Harbers (4 and 6), Kim van der Horst (5)

An old phonebooth transports you through the memories of the old New Babylonian. Step into that booth and let yourself be transported to a place before regret

Blooming New Babylon

Design: Emma Bourguignon | Text: Nina Vermeulen | Photos: film stills Blooming New Babylon (1-3), Kim van der Horst (4 and 6), Anne Harbers (5)

There’s always a choice. Every step of the way there is a choice. Do you stick to the path or do you let yourself stray, wander, explore?

Het verleden van een toekomststad | The Past of a Future City

Design: René ‘t Hart | Text: Nabil Tkhidousset and Luna Wicks | Photos: film stills Past of a Future City (1-3), Anne Harbers (4 and 6), Kim van der Horst (5)

What happened, how did we end up here? Our goal was clear and our intentions were pure.

Lisa Weeda on Enter New Babylon and Writing for VR

writer and director of VR

As a coach for the writers of Enter New Babylon, I say: experimenting with text in a relatively new medium is a fruitful process for (young) writers who want to work in the world of tomorrow and are not afraid to apply their craft and skills in multiple media forms, such as VR.

An immersive medium such as virtual reality offers a lot of room for research and development. It is, therefore, a new art form on which this young group of writers can leave their mark. By participating in Enter New Babylon, they will be able to adapt better and, in turn, think along with game and experience designers in the future about a complete experience, in which the text stands firmly.

As a coach in this process and a writer in practice, myself, I also collaborating in multiple disciplines such as VR, audio and photography. I know that ‘being a hybrid writer’ is a skill that benefits you. Being allowed to work with Constant’s ideas, to be able to shape these ideas with new (voice) layers and interaction, is a great and big step for the writers. They build on a legacy in a medium in which they are allowed to pioneer. Everything a young all-round writer needs to experiment with is captured in this project. Enter New Babylon brings disciplines together beautifully, in a fresh, layered and challenging way.

Team

Enter New Babylon is a co-production of Fondation Constant, Over het IJ Producties, Hogeschool voor de Kunsten Utrecht, Poetry Circle Nowhere and Feikes Huis.

Writers: Jasper Albinus, Steff Geelen, Roziena Salihu, Nabil Thkidousset, Nina Vermeulen, Luna Wicks
Designers: Emma Bourguignon, Juriaan Gregor, Morgan Henry, Bianca Lurvink, Aina Roca, René ‘t Hart
Design 3D model Grote gele sector: Dennis Molema
Artistic team: Pol Eggermont, Guus van Geffen, Kim van der Horst, Dennis Molema, Lisa Weeda
Advisor technical dramaturgy, coach concept development: Joris Weijdom
VR Designer: Frank Bosma
Scenography: Guus van Geffen
Sound Design: Jorg Schellekens
Production Leader: Leonie Baars
Location manager: Ruben Coers

Location

Over het IJ festival, Amsterdam | July 9 till18, 2021
IMPAKT, Utrecht | September 29 till October 15, 2022
Tetem, Enschede | November 10th till December 3, 2023

Special thanks goes out to:

Huub Krom (Studio Oorbit), Anneloes van Assem, Trudy Nieuwenhuys

Enter New Babylon is supported by:

Fonds Podiumkunsten, Fonds 21, Stimuleringsfonds Creatieve Industrie, Cultuurfonds, Letterenfonds, AFK and Cultuurfonds Overijssel.