Maarten Baas Smoke

In a way Smoke is a culmination of ideas I had during my time at the Eindhoven Academy: about the process of design, beauty, striving of perfection, the exchange between man and nature. People tend to hold on to what they have, without wanting things to change. “Time” is regarded as a tedious factor and not an extra dimension. We don’t often see any value in the process of change. Damage has to be repaired to maintain the original concept: symmetrical, shiny and tight. This is “perfection”. Nature, generally regarded as perfect, has much more fluid approach to such irregularities. If a human being nails an alien traffic sign to a tree – there’s no problem – the tree simply grows over it and creates a beautiful entwinement. This interaction between man and nature is interesting. The fact that the tree changes its growing process only adds to the beauty. But nature has playful ways of handing human’s fixed plans, and it’s the ultimate way to suspend a traffic sign.