We Heart, October 2013

This article was written 11 years ago.

October 2013

I wrote a series of profile pieces for online lifestyle magazine We Heart while in I was Eindhoven for Dutch Design Week. This one is on Bob de Graaf and his Species of Illumination project…

“The movement of living creatures triggers sensations, emotions and communication,” says Bob de Graaf. “In 2011, I made a radio controlled box with an abstract ‘head’ on it, and released it in a park in Eindhoven. I was the invisible puppeteer who controlled an abstract form so that it moved as if it was living. I was amazed by all the different reactions it got. People started waving at it, petting it, chasing it, and speeding up their own movement in reaction to it. It was a big discovery for me: that such a simple thing could provoke such joy and fun in people. As Plato said: “You can discover more in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.”