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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, the fusion of science and cloning, the many possibilities and uncertainties of future human birth, and the ethical dilemmas surrounding genetic modification. 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, connecting with them via the ChatGPT system. The videos of babies floating in space can be viewed on each screen, where audiences can observe how genetic anomalies are reimagined not as physical difficulties, but as representations of more unique and special forms of humanity. After experiencing egg retrieval and Preimplantation Genetic Testing (PGT), the artist went through the process of selecting embryos through genetic testing—freezing only those that passed as “normal,” while discarding those that did not. But what exactly defines an embryo with “normal” genes, and should embryos with “abnormal” genes be discarded? Even now, countless human embryos that fail PGT during in-vitro fertilization are discarded worldwide, never reaching pregnancy or birth. Does an embryo that fails PGT, then, represent a baby that was never born? 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.
Het Ei 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. Het Ei 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
Melting Image
Thu 22 · tba · The Cristel Ballroom Gallery · Amsterdam
Melting Image is a quiet resistance to how we consume images today — against the passive, one-dimensional scroll of the digital screen, it asks for presence instead of speed. Here, looking takes time, and the image only reveals itself to those willing to give it. An image is silkscreened onto layers of transparent material, then heat-formed until it lifts off the flat surface and takes on an organic, sculptural shape. Displayed in the gallery window, it turns the glass into a screen between street and space. Lit from behind by a slowly shifting projection, each layer catches the colour differently: parts of the image surface, others fade, never quite settling into one form. The longer you look, the more it keeps changing. Romina Koopman is a visual artist working at the edge of the tangible and the virtual, questioning how the digital image reshapes our perception of reality. The artwork will be displayed in the gallery's window throughout the ADE week, day and night.
The night Sessions
Thu 22 · 01:00 · The Bas[s]ment · Amsterdam
For The Night Sessions we’ve got something extra special lined up! We’re bringing you a stellar selection of artists who have all graced the legendary Bas[s]ment stage at one point or another. And to top it off, Sunday is fully dedicated to the winners of the Bas[s]ment’s DJ Contest.These exclusive sets will air right after our regular program. Get ready for a week of unforgettable music, deep vibes, and the true spirit of the Bas[s]ment.
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
RESONANCE: Listening to the Future
Thu 22 · 09:45 · The Stargate · Amsterdam