klomp

Mapping Hybridity
With a mixture of cartoons and mapping Rogier Klomp explores what it means to be hybrid. You’re invited to wander through the map, answer questions, follow suggestions and find your way in this brain wave on hybridity.

The map views hybrid as a temporary state where two things come together and it isn’t yet defined what the mix will do. It’s a state of possibilities. Whether it’s a brew of two species or the merging of digital and physical or a cocktail of Artificial and Collective Intelligence, a new thing is in the making and new unique qualities are emerging. We’re still in the not-knowing, yet we are right in the middle of it. We live in hybrid bodies, we move though hybrid spaces and live our hybrid lives. We are hybrarians at work, thinking hybridly together and we can only wonder about the hybrid species we are becoming.

Welcome Hybrarian.
You are here ...ànd here.
Please enter hybridly.

Excerpt from Metropolis M:
“Upon entering, I am greeted by a large yellow wall: "Welcome hybrarian." With his work, Rogier Klomp appeals to us, the hybrarians of '23. The arrows on the wall do not chart a linear path but lead to a constellation of cartoons and texts. The map is reminiscent of Gudskul’s sketch-like representation of a collective ecosystem at the Fridericianum during Documenta 15 last summer. In a similar way, this work, as a kind of mind map, visualizes the temporary state of ‘becoming,’ deliberately leaving it open-ended.

‘What do you want to become?’ I read, and not far from it, I see the depiction of two organisms being created—half human, half fish. ‘1+1 = -2,’ it says, but also: ‘1+1 = 3.’ And there is much more to discover on this wall.”

”Even without having seen the other, or still upcoming, installations, Klomp’s Welcome Hybrarian already seems like a fitting anchor point for the project, which can best be described as a collage: a temporary state in which things come together, while leaving open what that convergence will lead to.”
— Liza Voetman (07-08-2023)

In collaboration with MU Hybrid Art House, I also created a workshop around the mind map. In this workshop, visitors are guided through the map and challenged to reflect on their own hybridity.