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Stillness in motion

Plastic Auto — © Gijs Schalkx

Gijs Schalkx examines our relationship with technology, energy and mobility in his own way. A motorcycle running on swamp gas, a car running on waste plastic, or an electric flying bicycle may seem absurd, but are more logical than you think.

With every solution comes a problem

With his hands-on approach, Gijs Schalkx physically and mentally tests the boundaries of what moves us as human beings. He unravels the possibilities and myths surrounding the solutions with which we have enormously extended our daily mobility over the past century. In doing so, Gijs opens up alternative room to move. His vehicles are visibly rooted in the here and now, yet manage, in all their basic simplicity, to transcend it. They really drive, admittedly rumbling, rattling and raw, but are above all vehicles into the realm of the imagination, where nothing is ever quite what it seems.

In their recognisable simplicity as moped, car and flying bicycle, Schalkx's vehicles sharply expose the complexity of our all-too-linear human drive toward ever faster, ever more efficient, ever further. At first glance they prompt a wondering smile, only to soon raise more serious questions. Questions about how self-evident we take all our driving and flying. About how immensely deeply we have grown into our modern mobility. About de-signing as a strategy to move beyond the known and appeal to the conscience.

Written by Angelique Spaninks

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About Gijs Schalkx

Gijs Schalkx takes the world as we know it apart, in order to put all the separate parts back together afterwards and add a few problems along the way, recognisable yet different. Through de-signing he investigates the self-evident assumptions of our technological society. He exposes what we do not see: the enormous amount of time, labour and raw materials behind our hypermobile world. What seems absurd turns out to be a sharp analysis of sustainability, mobility and the energy transition.

e-Luchtfiets — © Gijs Schalkx

Slootmotor — © Maarten van der Wolf

Uitlaatgas op papier — © Gijs Schalkx

Schets e-Luchtfiets — © Gijs Schalkx

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Strijp T+R area, Strijp-TX, Achtsteweg Zuid 180 , Map No. A11
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Partially Wheelchair Accessible
Toilets available