• Willem Kempers
  • London, UK

Willem Kempers is a freelance computational designer and creative technologist fluent in a variety of programming languages, electronics and design fields. His work in the applied arts is concentrated around audiovisual, interaction and installation design. He is particularly interested in designing screens for content, rather than content for screens.

Willem is an active part of the United Visual Artists (UVA) collective. Through his work with UVA he has collaborated with artists including choreographer Benjamin Millepied, fashion designer Christopher Bailey for the Autumn / Winter 2018 fashion runway show at Burberry as well as worked on projects commissioned by institutions internationally, including The Store X The Vinyl Factory (London, UK) and MONA (Hobart, Australia).

He is a visiting lecturer at the IED and DP departments at the Royal College of Art in London.

Feel free to get in touch via email.

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UVA - Present Shock

Borusan Contemporary, Istanbul, TR, 2022

Present Shock confronts the viewer with a barrage of statistical clocks representing real-time information about the world—from life-changing global events to the banal trivia of everyday existence—highlighting how the speed and volume of data in the Information Age present new challenges to our limited cognitive apparatus.

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VIDEO BY: SANDRA CIAMPONE

PHOTO BY: SANDRA CIAMPONE

PHOTO BY: SANDRA CIAMPONE

PHOTO BY: SANDRA CIAMPONE

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JBS - The Centre

Museum of the Future, Dubai, UAE, 2021

Created for the Museum of the Future in Dubai, The Centre is an inhabitable media artwork that uses water, light, vibration and sound to reawaken the senses. An antidote to an ever more digitally saturated reality, the installation offers an immediate, visceral experience inspired by historic ritual. For millennia, humans have sought unique ways to physically heal and spiritually recentre. Wide-ranging socio-cultural practices from Victorian spa therapies to Tibetan gong baths use water and vibration for restorative purposes.

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PHOTO BY: BAKER & EVANS

PHOTO BY: BAKER & EVANS

PHOTO BY: BAKER & EVANS

PHOTO BY: BAKER & EVANS

PHOTO BY: BAKER & EVANS

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UVA - Harmonics

London, UK, 2020

Harmonics challenges our perception of light and sound unfolding at great speed, an illusion of time blending. As the two kinetic sculptures speed up, rotating beams of light blend to form volumes of colour, while multiple discrete sounds become a major chord. Unable to process extremely fast information, our brain reads sequential sensory inputs as a single event in time. A disconnected reality perceived as a continuum, a harmonious whole.

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PHOTO BY: JACK HEMS

PHOTO BY: JAMES MEDCRAFT

MOTOR CONTROL FROM DISGUISE

PHOTO BY: JAMES MEDCRAFT

PHOTO BY: JACK HEMS

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UVA - Our Time

London, UK, 2019

Commissioned by The Store X The Vinyl Factory, this site-specific iteration of Our Time is one of three works in the Other Spaces show.

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Round of Applause

NIME Conference, online, 2020

Clapping is the auditory equivalent of a group hug, a primordial and strangely exhilarating collective noise-making activity, which has recently brought closer together many city-dwellers in a collective hommage to healthcare systems around the world. But this time, we want to extend the participatory experience of clapping to the scale of a global community - both as an ongoing tribute to essential workers’ efforts and as a collective sound-making experiment - by allowing you to clap together with anyone in the world through your browser.

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PHOTO BY: FILIP VAN ROE

MOTOR AND DRIVETRAIN

PHOTO BY: FILIP VAN ROE

PHOTO BY: FILIP VAN ROE

CUSTOM DESIGNED DMX CONTROLLED CONSTANT-CURRENT LED DRIVER

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UVA - Bach Studies

Antwerp, BE, 2019

As a second-time collaboration with French choreographer Benjamin Millepied, this work continues UVA’s explorations on the dialogue between dance, architecture and music, creating a dynamic set that articulates the stage like a body.

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UVA - Spectrum

London, UK, 2018

Our collaboration with Christopher Bailey and Burberry presented Our Time in London, UVA’s large-scale installation investigating our subjective experience of the passing of time.

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UVA - Message from the Unseen World

London, UK, 2016

Message from the Unseen World is a permanent work inspired by the ideas and legacy of Alan Turing. It was commissioned by Future City for British Land’s Paddington Central along the gateway to the new development close to Bishop’s Bridge Road.

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Early Work

IDA Arnhem, NL, 2016

Willem has a Bachelors degree in Interaction Design from ArtEZ University of the Arts (NL, 2016) where he won the Arnhemse Nieuwe Award for his graduation work. During his studies he made several pieces that have been exhibited, awarded and presented at various talks.

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