surprise me + only thursday + art & exhibitions + only idm & experimental
ADE picks
Charged by Jaco Schilp
Thu 22 · tba · ADE Lab Village Westergas · Amsterdam
Every person who walks into Charged becomes exactly that. A cloud of light gathers around you, pulled in by your presence, and moves when you move. Some people you meet in it carry the same charge as you, and so push each other's energy away. Others carry the opposite, and your clouds fold into each other before either of you has decided to merge. As magnetic poles repel, opposites attract. The work is about how we change each other's environment simply by being in it, positively or negatively, whether we mean to or not. Charging and discharging as a way of interacting between persons. The more people step in, the more chaotic it becomes. With only a few, it settles into something calm and connected. The visuals in Charged were built with TouchDesigner, while its eye uses an open-source AI vision model called YOLO, which has become the standard way for a machine to find people in a camera image. Its own creator walked away from it in 2020 because he could no longer ignore its military and surveillance uses. In Charged, artist Jaco Schilp give it a different job: it doesn't know who you are, but only where you are and how you move. No record of the images is kept. Technology born for watching, reimagined as a tool for connection and play. Jaco Schilp explores how these systems can transform when placed in a different light. Charged is a public light installation in Westerpark. It can be visited for free at any time of day or night during ADE week.
Dreaming Babies: illi by Yoon Chung Han
Thu 22 · tba · ADE Lab Village Westergas · Amsterdam
The artwork “ Dreaming Babies: illi ” presents 23 special hybrid human babies , each with a different chromosomal anomaly, sleeping and dreaming inside their own virtual incubator in space, weaving stories through their unique identities. This project explores new speculative human designs, addressing humanity’s desire to create a perfect being through genetic technologies. Each baby’s story, generated from genetic data, is created in collaboration with artificial intelligence. Visitors can interact with the sleeping babies in real time by inputting sound through a microphone. On the screens, audiences can observe how genetic anomalies are reimagined not as physical difficulties, but as representations of more unique and special forms of humanity. What exactly defines an embryo with “normal” genes, and should embryos with “abnormal” genes be discarded? This AI-based installation reinterprets the genome not as an object of pathology, but as a site of imagination and mythology. Each chromosome—often associated with genetic disorders or congenital conditions—is reborn as a baby character with a name, an alter ego and imagined being, endowed not with deficiency but with a poetic and abstract superpower. By naming and animating what is often silenced or hidden in the shadows of society, the work subverts the stigma surrounding disability, difference, and genetic variation. The installation proposes an alternative mythology—where anomaly becomes another self, and what is called “abnormal” is transformed into a source of creative power, multiplicity, and beauty. This work is commissioned by Seoul Foundation for ADE Arts and Culture. It is a free public installation in Westerpark, and can be visited for free at any time of day or night during ADE week.
Heliotrope by Heleen Blanken & Daniel de Bruin
Thu 22 · tba · ADE Lab Village Westergas · Amsterdam
After being cancelled during ADE 2025 due to the adverse weather conditions, Heliotrope by Heleen Blanken & Daniel de Bruin is back at the ADE Lab Village in Westerpark during the ADE week 2026. Heliotrope is a kinetic installation inspired by the natural phenomenon in which plants orient their leaves and blossoms toward the sun. The work takes this principle as both a biological reference and a metaphor, exploring processes of energy reception, tropistic behaviour, the atomic movements inherent to living matter, and the pulsating rhythms embedded within the natural world. This idea is translated into a mirrored installation. The mechanically engineered installation moves its blades, diffusing light beams, and reflecting its surroundings in a chaotic and refracted image. It explores parallels between manufactured and organic movements and tries to liquefy the barriers. Heliotrope transforms from day into night and back again, evoking a state of perpetual motion. In doing so, it proposes an artificial organism, one that, like its botanical counterpart, responds to invisible flows of energy. Heliotrope is a public light installation in Westerpark. It can be visited for free at any time of day or night during ADE week.
The Egg by Touki Delphine
Thu 22 · tba · ADE Lab Village Westergas · Amsterdam
Part of ADE Arts & Culture, co-curated with Amsterdam Light Festival. Amsterdam-based Touki Delphine is a boundary-pushing collective of musicians, performers, and visual artists. They are making waves both nationally and internationally with monumental light and sound installations, built from recycled materials: taillights in FIREBIRD , turn signal relays in RELAY , wiring in TRANSMISSION , windshield washer fluid reservoirs and their pump motors in DRIFTING . Their latest work, SUPERDRUM , is constructed from second-hand drums, wooden branches, and car door lock mechanisms. Through their work, they create musical poetic encounters between humans and machines. Inspired by natural systems, the climate crisis and the idea of nature as a living whole, they imagine a future in which people, nature and technology collaborate rather than compete, and where waste can be transformed into something meaningful, alive and beautiful. That vision feels more urgent than ever. In a time of ecological exhaustion, technological alienation and social fragmentation, they believe there is a growing need for physical, sensory and collective experiences. Through their work, they explore how technology can not only distance us, but also reconnect us, creating poetic encounters between humans and machines. The Egg is a public light installation in Westerpark . It was co-curated with Amsterdam Light Festival , marking a first collaboration between the two organisations that brings together electronic music and light art. It can be visited for free at any time of day or night during ADE week. It will appear in the city again coming winter for the fifteenth edition of Amsterdam Light Festival. More information: amsterdamlightfestival.com
Deep Seeing Currents
Thu 22 · 09:00 · ARTIS Aquarium · Aquarium · Amsterdam
As you approach Deep Seeing Currents by Olafur Eliasson , you are slowly enveloped by darkness and the sounds of life underwater. Layers of oceanic cacophony – whale songs, rumbling of hydrothermal vents, and human-made noises, among others – surround you, while the vibrations can be felt throughout your entire body, emulating the experience of pressure in the deep sea. Above and around you, lights flash and seem to descend like the hypnotic circulation of marine snow, the organic and inorganic particles essential to life in the deep sea. The immersive sound of Deep seeing currents is brought to life by 4DSOUND . The exhibition is located inside the ARTIS Aquarium and can be visited with a valid ARTIS Park ticket. Tickets are available through the ARTIS website. Opening hours: Wed - Sun, 09:00 - 18.00
EINDER by Boris Acket
Thu 22 · 10:00 · Centrale Markthal · Amsterdam
Between 22-25 October, you can walk beneath the art installation EINDER by Boris Acket and experience it up close as it continuously transforms, flowing to the rhythm of day and night. Ready to step into the art and leave time behind? During the EINDER exhibition, you decide how your experience unfolds and how long it lasts. Walk, sit, stand still, and watch EINDER continuously transform to the rhythm of day and night. Always moving. Never the same twice. All we need to know is when you’ll arrive. From that moment on, the space is yours. Special time-slots with performances of Kianí del Valle On Friday 23 and Saturday 24 October at 9PM, Kianí del Valle takes over with a unique performance, reshaping the installation’s movements through her dynamic choreography. Every moment of the day has its own unique effect on EINDER. It’s up to you to choose your favourite time slot(s) As the sun rises and sets, shining its light through the sky panels onto the installation. Enjoy the soft morning light, the brightness of day, the shifting colours of sunset, or the dark skies at night. You decide how you experience EINDER. Explore more ADE Arts & Culture events at Centrale Markthal here .
Minimal Collective x Oude Kerk: Post-Space - Audiovisual Installation
Thu 22 · 10:00 · Oude Kerk Amsterdam · Amsterdam
From Thursday 22 to Saturday 24 October 2026, during Amsterdam Dance Event, Minimal Collective presents the second edition of its ongoing site-oriented listening series, Post-Space, in collaboration with Oude Kerk and ADE Arts & Culture. Across three days, sound and visual art enter into dialogue with the distinctive architecture and acoustics of Amsterdam’s oldest building. On Friday , October 23rd and Saturday , October 24th, Post-Space presents two distinct evening programmes of live performances and DJ sets, featuring an audiovisual world premiere and several debut collaborations. For its second edition, Post-Space expands its format with Hieropixel , a new audiovisual installation by Tharim Cornelisse . Using images and sound recordings from the Oude Kerk as source material, the work transforms elements of the building into an evolving audiovisual composition. In addition to being presented during the church’s daytime opening hours from Thursday through Saturday, Hieropixel also accompanies the live programmes on Friday and Saturday night in an adapted form. The work marks the first iteration of an evolving visual method within Post-Space, responding to the spatial character of each location. The installation and live performances come together within a wider listening environment developed specifically for the Oude Kerk. Building on research conducted during last year’s edition, Kantarion Sound returns with a custom sound system that responds to the building’s distinctive acoustics, while seating by côte&ciel introduces a physical dimension to the act of listening. Through art, sound and editorial storytelling, Post-Space enters into dialogue with the church, exploring memory, histories and embodied deep listening.
The Nature of Remembering
Thu 22 · 12:00 · W139 · Amsterdam