On the Other Side of the Screen

By Merijn Bolink

14 February – 28 March, 2026

Merijn Bolink (born 1967) lives and works in Amsterdam. He translates his research into artificial intelligence into sculptures and installations, often executed using seemingly traditional techniques. Since the 1990s, he has been creating hybrid sculptures in which nature and virtual reality intersect and explore each other’s boundaries. What grows is guided by him; what is artificial begins to behave naturally through his interventions.

Merijn Bolink: “As you read this, you’re probably sitting behind a screen. On the other side of that screen, you also exist: your photos, your messages, your chats, your search history, your musical taste, your poetry, your love letters… — everything is stored on hard drives, spread across every continent on the planet, so that nothing is lost. On the other side of the screen, part of who we are consists of electrically charged particles transported to their carriers through an unimaginably refined network of copper wire.”

In his new exhibition, besides copper, polarization filters are also featured: plastic sheets taken from used screens. They are silent, transparent media through which masses of images have passed, surfaces that simultaneously block out and suggest access. The gaze remains fixed on the screen, while something else is active elsewhere: delayed, invisible, withdrawing. What lies beyond cannot be revealed, only surmised.