My name is Hugo van der Loo. I design furniture and objects, make installations and collections and work on fiction films and series. This is a wide spectrum of activities, but that is because with every project I try to find the medium that best fits the story I want to tell. Of course a project doesn’t start with choosing a medium, it usually starts with a fascination for the background and origin of a topic. Every object, technique, material, building, or any small design detail that might seem insignificant, tells a story and can provide context about our culture, and ways of seeing and behaving. I tend to see these design features as signs that point out certain aspects of our past and present. The interesting part for me as a designer is to find a way to transform these signs into a design metaphor. These design metaphors can then be used to convey the story you want to tell in a more accessible and tangible way.
Experimenting with wooden joinery
Work in progress_ During some experiments with wood spitting and bending, I developed a method of wood joinery. After some more experiments with steam bending, I was able to make a sustainable wooden construction using these wooden joints. I had the possibility to design a table for a customer on the basis of this technique. Currently I am developing different ways of using the same joinery method to make more wooden constructions besides furniture.
Existe!
Existe! is a short film that I wrote and developed together with Luca Zuberbuhler. A fragile theatre building is about to be destroyed by a real-estate company. When strange noises emerge from the vaults, the demolition works are momentarily halted. Slowly, the construction worker Lucien walks inside the building to find out where the sounds are coming from. He finds a secluded artist who refuses to leave and tries to lure him into one final play.
Cabinet of skeuomorphism
In carpentry there are many examples of skeuomorphism. Fake wooden joints are added by carpenters to provide their furniture with an ambiance of craft and authenticity. The aesthetics of these originally purely functional joints have become desirable and appreciated as decorative ornaments. In this cabinet design I added skeuomorphs in a clearly atheistic way.
Faking a Function
Exhibition of objects to illustrate skeuomorphism, as part of my research for my graduation project at the Willem de Kooning academy. Due to technology objects around us become obsolete or improve. Often, this change doesn’t concern the entire product, but one of its design features. Most of the features are scrapped from the design, but some manage to survive. They have gained a cultural and aesthetic value. The feature who's original function has become obsolete is called a skeuomorph.
Our cultural archive
The Idea of the ‘Dutch identity’ is influenced by childhood, religion, and the place and date of birth. This installation investigates this cultural archive in relation to political statements about the Dutch identity. One can listen to two audio tracks, one with statements by politicians about a national identity, the other with the same statements, but narrated by someone with e.g. a Surinamese background. The accent contradicts the political statement, and shows the exclusive effect it has.
Rayon de Soleil
The film is set In the 12th century French wilderness. A woman awaits with her child for her husband to return from the crusades. While exploring the way people back then lived in relation to nature, this historical drama favors the use of allegory to address contemporary concerns such as religious fanaticism,post-traumatic stress disorder and family alienation. I was responsible for the production design of this short film.