#59 is an abstract animated science fiction film that looks at the experiences shared by humans and electronic circuits during the Cold War. Our computing technology is a side effect of the development of atomic weapons and their associated planetary surveillance systems. In the same period Edward Lorenz and Yoshisuke Ueda independently discovered deterministic chaos through their computing systems. In film #59, humans, aliens and devices vacillate between these two poles of machinic chaos and planetary control. In a re-enactment of ancestral ways of computing, the animations were made as analog electronic signals. These were generated using period equipment, including an analog computer from 1963, early sonar and radar oscillators, and bits from flight simulators. This film is an attempt to liberate these technologies from their military origins.
 

Joost Rekveld (1970) is a Dutch artist who is motivated by the question of what we can learn from a dialogue with machines. In his work, he explores the sensory consequences of systems of his own design, often inspired by forgotten corners in the history of science and technology. These systems combine temporary dogma’s in the form of procedures or code, with more open-ended elements such as material processes or networks of interactions that are too complex to predict. His films, installations and performances are composed documentaries of the worlds opened by such systems. In their sensuality they are an attempt to reach an intimate and embodied understanding of our technological world. His abstract films have been shown world-wide in a wide range of festivals and venues for experimental film, animation or other kinds of moving image. He had retrospectives at the Barbican in London and the Ann Arbor film festival amongst others, and in 2017 he was filmmaker in focus at the International Film Festival Rotterdam. Individual films were screened at hundreds of venues, including the ICA and the Tate Modern in London, The Centre Pompidou in Paris and the Moderna Museet in Stockholm. His film #11, Marey <-> Moire was the first Dutch film ever to be shown at the Sundance Film Festival.

He has realized several installations and was involved in many collaborative projects involving composers, music ensembles, theatre companies, dance companies and artist’s labs. These included dance company Emio Greco | PC (Amsterdam / Marseille), music theatre ensemble De Veenfabriek (Leiden), contemporary music ensembles such as ASKO / Schonberg (Amsterdam) and ensemble Intercontemporain (Paris), Opera North (Leeds) and The Royal Opera (London) and electronic art and music laboratories such as IRCAM (Paris), STEIM (Amsterdam) and the V2 Institute for Unstable Media (Rotterdam). Since 2017, Joost has been affiliated to the School of Arts, University College Ghent as an artistic researcher. As a side-effect of his artistic work, he has been putting together many film programmes about the history of abstract animation and light art since 1990, has curated several exhibitions and has published a number of essays. He has been giving lectures since 1993, has been teaching since 1996, and from 2008 to 2014 he was the course director of the ArtScience Interfaculty of the Royal Conservatoire and the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague. He is a board member of Sonic Acts (Amsterdam) and of the Centre for Visual Music (Los Angeles).