Nerds Republic

When you think of art, you probably imagine something hanging on a wall, but that’s not how Dutch artist Suzan Drummen creates. Her glittering installations, featuring thousands of shiny glass pieces, beads, and jewels, are laid out right on the floor in carefully arranged mandala and textile-like patterns. The bright colors and shining elements make them look magical, while their placement causes viewers to stop and rethink how they plan on navigating the space.

Drummen uses pins to attach items to walls, but the pieces on the floor are simply laid down. There’s nothing holding them in place.

This means that for all the work that goes into them, these installations are rather fragile.

Though they’re meticulously arranged, Drummen says that she never creates a plan for her pieces beforehand. She says everything is spontaneous: “I check the light, the route of the visitors, the colors, the height, etc., on [the] spot. The whole atmosphere actually guides me. Every space requires something else and the installation grows slowly.”

Needless to say, the process of creating these pieces is a time-consuming one.

And the art is not at all permanent, although Drummen has created some permanent installations.

The artist says that when people realize the pieces are loose, they tend to get very excited. She wants her work to draw people in and compel them to examine it from a closer perspective, inspecting all the tiny components.

Sometimes, Drummen uses other surfaces besides just floors and walls.

She occasionally uses participants who sit or lie on the floor and allow themselves to be adorned with glittering jewels.

If these bright, dizzying designs seem a bit overwhelming to you, that’s exactly what Drummen wants.

“From a distance they appear clear and orderly, yet upon closer inspection, the eyes become disoriented by the many details and visual stimuli,” she explains.

“That moment, of being able to take it all in or not, is explored, time and time again. The visual perception is challenged, requisitioned, and intensified.”

(via Bored Panda, Colossal, Irenebrination)

You can see much more of Drummen’s work on her website, including other types of installations and art forms. You can also see what she’s up to on Facebook.

Social media is a blessing and a curse. On one hand, it lets us connect with people all over the world and stay in touch with the friends and relatives we might otherwise lose contact with. On the other, it can be a terrifying swamp of embarrassing photos and oversharing. But there’s one thing that it surprisingly isn’t. And that’s new.

How can social media not be new? How can it not require the Internet? In fact, analogue versions of LinkedIn and Facebook have been around for centuries. They existed in the form of paper books called alba amicorum, in which people collected messages and images from friends and colleagues. They’ve been around for hundreds of years. Dutch historian Sophie Reinders studies these fascinating pieces of history.

These books were used by young men and women in Northern Europe to record and keep track of friendships and professional relationships.

The practice is thought to have begun in about 1560.

Alba amicorum literally means “friend book” in Latin.

These books were used by both boys and girls, but because of how society functioned in the 1600s, they used them for different reasons.

Boys were routinely sent on tours of Europe to study at famous universities and institutions, and to meet with great thinkers and scholars. They used their friend books kind of like the way we use LinkedIn — as a way of gaining professional connections.

These images come from the book of Michael van der Meer, who recorded his travels with impressive illustrations.

Some images depict members of the aristocracy.

And he apparently spent time with pretty ladies.

This might be an early version of the “It’s Complicated” relationship option.

While boys toured the continent, girls were usually sent to spend time in convents or to serve as ladies-in-waiting, which helped them break into the best social circles. They didn’t travel much, but they still used friend books.

Instead of notes from scientists and artists, the girls’ books were filled with correspondences between friends and admirers, inside jokes, and detailed accounts of social events. If the boys’ books were like LinkedIn, then the girls’ were like Facebook.

Juliana de Roussel’s friend book was beautifully decorated as well.

This one belonged to Jacoba Cornelia Bolten, who was a socialite during that time period.

These books are striking in their similarity to Facebook — it’s just that the technology was a bit different. Pictures were drawn, and instead of sharing articles, they wrote down their favorite proverbs, song lyrics, and poems. Many women even wrote their own poetry.

Married couples could also “update their status” by writing a joint note. (That’s right. Joint social media was a nauseating problem back then, too.)

Pages like this one from Margaretha Haghen’s book show guests recounting their time at a party.

One passage reads, “In Shrovetide, on day two / We guests wrote this for you / And could not leave for home / So tipsy we’d become / Love made us so besotted / We left nothing in the bottle.” I guess things haven’t really changed that much.

(via MessyNessyChic)

These networks between people help historians develop a clearer picture of what life was really like during this time period. From the connections in their books, they can even piece together 400-year-old relationships.

Next time you want to complain about those darn kids on Facebook, remember that people have been posting silly things for hundreds of years. You can learn more about them on Reinders’ website, and through the National Library of the Netherlands’ digitized collection of books.