07 october 2024, Wouter van den Eijkel
The studio of... Jasper de Beijer
In I have seen the future Jasper de Beijer links the futuristic visions from General Motors' Futurama exhibitions of 1939 and 1964 with the ideals of the 1970s, the decade of his youth. During his student days, he realised that these ideals increasingly diverged from reality. “I became disappointed in my generation, but also in myself, because I truly believed in the 'Benetton' ideal that all people of the world are one and we must work together to save the planet. I was so naive to think that humanity could collectively unite behind that idea.”
While the individualistic world of I Have Seen the Future may not look ‘pleasant’, De Beijer still sees a positive side. He believes that beautiful things have been built on the ruins of our good intentions. I Have Seen the Future is therefore about acceptance and flexibility. According to De Beijer, utopian visions usually rely on technological solutions and tend to be blind to human adaptability.
This adaptability is also reflected in the modular scale model of a car he built. The modular system gives the illusion of individualism, but the parts never really fit. "In the end, duct tape always has to fix it. In that sense, it's also a celebration of a certain kind of creativity because you always have to adapt and think laterally."
I have seen the future by Jasper de Beijer is exhibited until 19 October at Gallery dudokdegroot in Amsterdam.
Where is your studio and what does it look like?
My studio is in Zaanstad in an old community centre. You can still find places with a bit of an edge in Zaanstad, where not all real estate has been bought up. It has a similar vibe to Amsterdam’s Eastern Docklands in the 1990s.
Jasper de Beijer, I Have Seen the Future #3, 2024, galerie dudokdegroot
Your work consists of countless photos, often of models you have built, so I imagine a desk with a big computer isn't enough. What makes a good studio for you?
The size of the space is important, of course, but also the height, because I use a lot of lights when taking photographs. So, it also needs to function as a photo studio. I also work a lot with glue and paint, so ventilation is crucial.
If I were interning with you, what would a typical day in your studio look like? Do you have routines, is it completely quiet, do you enjoy receiving visitors or prefer to keep people out?
It depends on what I'm working on. The first months of a project are usually spent on research and experimentation, which I prefer to do alone. Once I start executing a plan to build something, I take a pragmatic approach to my materials and ideas. At that point, I enjoy working with other people and getting feedback. My day is usually fully booked with work. I take short breaks and I’m constantly focused. I make sure I never work through the night, keeping a strict schedule with deadlines to avoid getting stressed when a deadline approaches.
Jasper de Beijer, I Have Seen the Future #5, 2024, galerie dudokdegroot
In I have seen the future you link General Motors' Futurama exhibitions of 1939 and 1964 to the idealism of the 1970s, the decade of your youth. Can you explain what was shown at those exhibitions and how the idea to connect this with the ideals of the ’70s came about?
The first exhibition in 1939 featured a huge model with various types of urban areas and landscapes. The vision presented was one of extreme mobility and automation, allowing Americans to live further from work and enjoy a more luxurious lifestyle. This hyper-mobility also applied to goods and resources. This mentality continued into the 1960s, when social criticism started focusing on the consequences of our lifestyle. In the 1960s and ’70s, a movement arose that began questioning this.
I grew up in a time when the idea of 'malleability'—the ability to shape society—was under scrutiny and the focus shifted back to humanity and nature. Out of this grew a new utopia.
When did you first realise that these ideas didn’t align well with reality?
I think during my student years, when I noticed that the ideals my generation grew up with were eroding. The feeling that we would solve things together shifted to a much more individualistic approach. I became disappointed in my generation, but also in myself, because I truly believed in the 'Benetton' ideal that all people of the world are one and we must work together to save the planet. I was so naive to think that humanity could collectively rally behind this idea.
Jasper de Beijer, I Have Seen the Future #6, 2024, galerie dudokdegroot
In I have seen the future you document what can happen when people cling to utopia at all cost. You show a world that isn’t ‘pleasant’. What do you think the consequences are?
Even though the work doesn’t show a ‘pleasant’ world, it has a positive element. I’ve been to countries where people have built beautiful things on the ruins of our good intentions. In that sense, it’s also about acceptance and flexibility. If you cling to a dogmatic idea while the world is changing all around you, you’ll constantly need to accept the new situation.
I’ve spent a lot of time studying future visions from the past 100 years and they all have one thing in common: they assume technological solutions will solve social problems. They rely heavily on technology rather than on human resilience. That’s why these visions are often blinding—by focusing so much on practical and technical solutions, there’s less attention to humanity itself. You see this now with the rise of AI: instead of focusing on how it can take over boring, mindless tasks, we’re letting these machines generate images and text, things we enjoy doing ourselves.
Those are exactly the things that the futurists of the 20th century wanted more time for once all the mundane work was outsourced to robots and computers. If we stop generating creativity and leave that to machines, it devalues the idea that creativity is a difficult but valuable process that humans need to go through various stages to achieve. Suddenly, making beautiful things is no longer something unique. It means we’re giving up something important in exchange for an easy solution. For something as crucial as creativity, that seems disastrous to me.
Apart from your photographic work, there’s also a sculpture of a modular car that is entirely 3D printed. Was that part of the futuristic vision in the 1970s?
Modular was a buzzword in the seventies and it also relates to Brutalism. The fun thing about modules is that you can personalise them to encompass your own version, giving the illusion of individuality. While making the car, I started with parts that didn’t fit well or were incompatible. In the end, it never works and duct tape is needed to fix it. In that sense, it’s also a celebration of a certain kind of creativity because you always have to adapt and think laterally.
Jasper de Beijer, I Have Seen the Future, 2024, galerie dudokdegroot
A project about future visions is ambitious in itself, but what kind of project would you pursue if time and money were no object?
I have a project that’s been on the back burner for years about hollow people. For example, with sociopaths, we’ve seen that a person can display human behaviour, but lack a sense of conscience behind all those traits. I would want to 'reverse engineer' from those behaviours and work toward the inner person, but that requires considerable technical knowledge.
What are you working on right now?
During this project, I stumbled on the idea of extreme malleability behind many of these visions. Sometimes, things are literally pressed into a mould under great pressure to meet certain requirements. For example, orchards where furniture is made by growing a tree into the shape of a chair.
I’m going to start with some experiments where I pull apart different components and materials and then press them back together under pressure, using an accelerated erosion process to break down the assembled objects.
I’m also toying with the idea of recycling, but in such a way that everything I build is forced into a certain form. This way, the object itself becomes useless, but still looks functional. Research usually precedes experimentation in my process, but here I want to use the material itself and the results of my interventions to guide the subsequent steps.
Jasper de Beijer, I Have Seen the Future #3, 2024, galerie dudokdegroot
