R.S.O.L.
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Room for the Study Of Loneliness : space for contemporary art
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- 20.05 - 20.06 2026
At Night
presentation with work by Marcel van Eeden info, Maarten Sipma info, Ibrahim Kurt info, Aalt van de Glind info, Petra Noordkamp info Matthijs Vermeulen, Marc Andres Raven info, Teun Vermeer info, Martin van Zomeren info
curators: Ton Kruse (curation and concept) & Aalt van de Glind (exhibition design)
At night, it is dark. Only when the sky is clear does the world reveal itself in the dark light reflected by the moon. Everyone is asleep – only you are there to see it.
Darkness is the absence of daylight: one sees less clearly, sees things differently, or does not see at all (blindness). The darkness of night hereby can become a symbol that gives matter for thought. In line with that darkness, the night itself can become a symbol also. For, a symbol is a manifestation of 'a mass of characterising intentions' in 'a case', says the French philosopher Paul Ricoeur (Symbols of Evil 1, Lemniscaat, Rotterdam, 1960, p. 13 - all translations to English are done by myself). By this he means: the word that signifies a thing simultaneously manifests a multitude of intended meanings (ibid. p. 14). By naming that one 'thing', many experiences and insights become conceivable and thus negotiable. Ricoeur says: 'The literal and obvious meaning points beyond itself to something that is like ...' (ibid. p. 17)
The first meaning is clear and unambiguous, but the second meaning is what Ricoeur calls 'opaque': many words are needed and possible to try to grasp it, without it ever being definitively and exhaustively described. We cannot intellectually master the analogy between the literal and symbolic meanings, says Ricoeur (ibid. p. 17). And this brings us to what we intend when we speak of the (poetic) 'image' in art: the image expresses something that goes beyond the purely referential to something that existed or exists (somewhere, sometime) in the world. Ricoeur quotes Bachelard here: the image 'takes us to the origin of the speaking being'; it places language 'in its state of origin' (G. Bachelard, La Poétique de l'Espace. 1957 – op. cit. pp. 15,16).
Awake alone, at night, I experience the world differently. Danger lurks in the darkness. We hear something, but we do not see it. We are thrown back upon ourselves.
In Kafka's notation 'Nachts/At Night/'s Nachts), from the early 1920s, it says:
'It is just play acting, an innocent self-deception, that they sleep in houses, in safe beds, under a safe roof ... in reality they have flocked together as they once had once upon a time and again later in a deserted region, a camp in the open, ... under a cold sky on cold earth, collapsed where once they had stood.'
The lonely wakeful one, at night, has lost the illusion of safety and security. He sees that we are vulnerable, standing under a cold sky: there appears to be no o(O)ne that cares about us, who looks after us.
The night is thus an image of the cold darkness in our existence: the indifference of the cosmos. Who cares about us as individuals? The darkness of the night is also an image of the evil that exists within us, which is indifferent to the lifes of individuals. The girl without her parents in a refugee camp, the homeless woman in a big city, the young man caught up in a sadistic chat group, the young animal seized by hyenas, the man kicked to death by a passer-by, the slaughter of a pig – the list seems endless.
The word 'photo' in photography comes from the Ancient Greek word for light: phōs. To engrave means 'to inscribe'. Photography therefore means: writing with light. In the past, before the introduction of AI, photography was regarded as evidence – in courts of law, in criminal investigations and in journalism. It documented and recorded events and places truthfully: a photograph did not lie.
Of course, the photographer framed and focused, adjusted the lighting and pressed the shutter – and in doing so left things out, made choices, interpreted what was important and what was not. But the photographic image, written with light, was fairly difficult to manipulate and almost every intervention remained visible, left its traces. This made photography a trusted medium: it recorded reality as it actually was. The raw reality. Photography could be stark, illusionless, capturing reality with cold light.
There is a certain analogy between how the night can take away the illusion of safety and security and how photography showed the raw reality. Photography can capture darkness with light.
Kafka ends his notation as follows:
‘Why are you watching? Someone must watch, it is said. Someone must be there.’
TK 11-01-2026
Darkness is the absence of daylight: one sees less clearly, sees things differently, or does not see at all (blindness). The darkness of night hereby can become a symbol that gives matter for thought. In line with that darkness, the night itself can become a symbol also. For, a symbol is a manifestation of 'a mass of characterising intentions' in 'a case', says the French philosopher Paul Ricoeur (Symbols of Evil 1, Lemniscaat, Rotterdam, 1960, p. 13 - all translations to English are done by myself). By this he means: the word that signifies a thing simultaneously manifests a multitude of intended meanings (ibid. p. 14). By naming that one 'thing', many experiences and insights become conceivable and thus negotiable. Ricoeur says: 'The literal and obvious meaning points beyond itself to something that is like ...' (ibid. p. 17)
The first meaning is clear and unambiguous, but the second meaning is what Ricoeur calls 'opaque': many words are needed and possible to try to grasp it, without it ever being definitively and exhaustively described. We cannot intellectually master the analogy between the literal and symbolic meanings, says Ricoeur (ibid. p. 17). And this brings us to what we intend when we speak of the (poetic) 'image' in art: the image expresses something that goes beyond the purely referential to something that existed or exists (somewhere, sometime) in the world. Ricoeur quotes Bachelard here: the image 'takes us to the origin of the speaking being'; it places language 'in its state of origin' (G. Bachelard, La Poétique de l'Espace. 1957 – op. cit. pp. 15,16).
Awake alone, at night, I experience the world differently. Danger lurks in the darkness. We hear something, but we do not see it. We are thrown back upon ourselves.
In Kafka's notation 'Nachts/At Night/'s Nachts), from the early 1920s, it says:
'It is just play acting, an innocent self-deception, that they sleep in houses, in safe beds, under a safe roof ... in reality they have flocked together as they once had once upon a time and again later in a deserted region, a camp in the open, ... under a cold sky on cold earth, collapsed where once they had stood.'
The lonely wakeful one, at night, has lost the illusion of safety and security. He sees that we are vulnerable, standing under a cold sky: there appears to be no o(O)ne that cares about us, who looks after us.
The night is thus an image of the cold darkness in our existence: the indifference of the cosmos. Who cares about us as individuals? The darkness of the night is also an image of the evil that exists within us, which is indifferent to the lifes of individuals. The girl without her parents in a refugee camp, the homeless woman in a big city, the young man caught up in a sadistic chat group, the young animal seized by hyenas, the man kicked to death by a passer-by, the slaughter of a pig – the list seems endless.
The word 'photo' in photography comes from the Ancient Greek word for light: phōs. To engrave means 'to inscribe'. Photography therefore means: writing with light. In the past, before the introduction of AI, photography was regarded as evidence – in courts of law, in criminal investigations and in journalism. It documented and recorded events and places truthfully: a photograph did not lie.
Of course, the photographer framed and focused, adjusted the lighting and pressed the shutter – and in doing so left things out, made choices, interpreted what was important and what was not. But the photographic image, written with light, was fairly difficult to manipulate and almost every intervention remained visible, left its traces. This made photography a trusted medium: it recorded reality as it actually was. The raw reality. Photography could be stark, illusionless, capturing reality with cold light.
There is a certain analogy between how the night can take away the illusion of safety and security and how photography showed the raw reality. Photography can capture darkness with light.
Kafka ends his notation as follows:
‘Why are you watching? Someone must watch, it is said. Someone must be there.’
TK 11-01-2026
Programme in development:
- from November 14 2026
you were here
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archives from the margin
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(working title)
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a collaboration with Ruimte Ceasuur info of Hans Overvliet in cooperation with Giel Louws info and Jorieke Rottier info
more information follows ...
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R.S.O.L. is not supported by governments or funds, but is financed entirely from its own resources, proceeds and donations.
R.S.O.L. is not supported by governments or funds, but is financed entirely from its own resources, proceeds and donations.