AMSTERDAM.- The Stedelijk Museum is presenting Circuits, an installation by the Amsterdam design studio Experimental Jetset. The installation was specially designed for the space area at the top of the museum’s historic staircase. Circuits shows how information once had a physical form: sound, image, and other data were stored on physical carriers.

The installation comprises sixteen wall paintings, each mounted in the round frames (rosettes) on the top floor near the monumental stairway. Each visual depicts an (almost) extinct type of medium such as the 35mm film reel, LaserDisc, cassette tapes, and the CD. Black, abstract-minimalist, the shapes almost look like icons and transform the space into a visual archive showing how media and data once took physical form. An accompanying series of 16 abstract title plates gives this narrative another layer.

With Circuits, Experimental Jetset investigates how shape and content, carriers and memory, are intertwined. The installation reveals how the physical qualities of information carriers had a part in designing the content. Think about how long a song could last on an LP, or the recording time of a video tape. Experimental Jetset brings these forgotten formats back to life. Today, when we upload files to the cloud, the installation reminds us that we once had to physically back up data. And with this, Circuits does more than pay tribute to physical information carriers. The installation also asks us to stop and think about the digital era, when the ‘intangibility’ of information can easily lead to potentially more transience, instability, and manipulation.

Circuits is part of the Lost Formats Preservation Society, one of Experimental Jetset’s long-running research projects. Launched in 1999, with a publication in the magazine Emigre (currently on display in the Stedelijk’s permanent exhibition), it has since developed in a variety of ways. With this new installation, Experimental Jetset looks back on that earlier work, and reinterprets it for the museum’s architecture.

Amsterdam-based graphic design studio Experimental Jetset was founded in 1997 by Marieke Stolk, Erwin Brinkers, and Danny van den Dungen. Known for their highly conceptual approach, they describe their working method as ‘translating language into objects’. Their work has been exhibited worldwide, often exploring the relationship between design, language, politics and cultural history.