During Dutch Design Week, E52 will be introducing you to the festival’s hidden gems. Ten extraordinary designers who we feel are the stand-outs of this year. In the lead up to DDW, we will place one hidden gem in the spotlight each day. Today: Jannemarein Renout with SCAN2400.
What SCAN2400
By Jannemarein Renout
Where VDMA-gebouw. Vestdijk 25-27
Jannemarein Renout is a bit of a duck out of water in the list of gems, because she is not a designer but an art graduate. Renout works with document scanners. It produces abstract images, full of colour transitions and crazy effects. “How far can you go? What is possible with the ink? Does the printer still absorb the effects? I think it’s exciting to see how far I can go with this technique.”
Renout didn’t find it interesting to record identifiable reality, during her time at the Rietveld academy she chose photography for her graduation project. “I was looking for a way to capture movement on a flat surface but the effects that I got I already knew. Then I began seeing what I could do with scanners. In the beginning, this was also unsuccessful. Only when Renout did what caused the device to stop working – switching off the light – did she get a result. “In order to get an image, the scanner needs light, otherwise you get a dark result, but if you replace artificial light with natural light then you get an interesting effect.”
Renout has collected around 40 scanners in the past three years that she has been working with this technique. “Every scanner produces a different result, one scans for 8 minutes and the other for 90 minutes. I don’t change anything on the devices. What I do is take the scanners out of their natural environment. I do something that is actually not meant for the device. The information isn’t controllable, it is an interesting process I don’t know in advance what will come out of it. I think that’s exciting. I don’t use 99% of the scans. It remains a kind of quest for interesting images to emerge from the situation that I have to deal with.”
Before she was drawn into working with scanners. Renout worked for about 15 years as a lawyer. Something totally different: “You are extremely analytical, you look through a lens like a photographer, the world from the outside to the inside. This is how people view the world, through images. That’s what I try to let go of in my work. I don’t think from a composition. Through a unique process – taking office equipment outside – I try to transcend human presumptions.
Renout’s wish is to translate 2d images into something more tangible. “How cool would it be if you could translate these images into – I mean, for instance – a series of furniture? The scanner makes use of information and translates that to an image, from a whimsical process to a fixed image. These parameters could also translate into something tangible. It seems to me like a really cool study to explore with other designers.”
The ten gems of DDW were created in collaboration with Dutch Design Daily and curator Katja Lucas from DDW. Do you want to admire the gems yourself? Every day, Urban Exploring Tours and KOGA will organize a special bike trip and drop by the selected designers. You can find more info here.