Every few years something strange happens.
Out of nowhere, my 8-hour film Sleep — yes, the one where I just sleep naked — quietly wakes up, stretches a bit, and wanders back into the world like nothing happened. It gets a spike of views, a random mention somewhere, or ends up in a context where it absolutely does not feel like it belongs.
And then… it goes back to sleep.
Nothing really changes.
Nobody suddenly knows who I am. No doors dramatically open. No art-world transformation montage with uplifting music. Just a small ripple in a very large ocean.
And honestly, I think I like it that way.
Now the latest episode: Sleep has been selected for Anozero 26 – Biennal de Coimbra. It will be shown as part of a Three Rooms installation, projected into a monastery room. Which is… kind of perfect, actually. If there is a place where watching someone sleep for eight hours makes conceptual sense, it’s probably a monastery.
So yes — from Rotterdam in 2015 to Coimbra now. Same film. Same me. Still sleeping.
What fascinates me is that the film keeps accidentally staying relevant. At some point it got mixed into the whole “sleepstreaming” phenomenon online. Then it got removed. Then discussed. Then referenced in an academic thesis (which still feels surreal). And now this.
It’s like the film has its own slow, irregular heartbeat.
Meanwhile, I remain exactly where I started: just a guy making things without much of a plan.
And maybe that’s the key.
I’ve never been able to make art under pressure — not time pressure, not expectation, not audience reception. The moment something feels like it has to succeed or has to mean something, I’m out. That’s just not how this works for me.
So everything I do comes from a very simple place: I make things because I feel like making them.
That makes it pure.
But let’s be clear — “pure” is not the same thing as “good” or “high quality.” It just means unfiltered. Sometimes that results in something interesting. Sometimes it doesn’t. That’s part of the deal.
Also, in a world where even Banksy’s identity has (apparently) been revealed, there’s something oddly comforting about still being completely unknown. No expectations, no pressure, no narrative to maintain.
Just… doing things.
So Sleep continues its strange little journey. Appearing every now and then, reminding me that once I made an 8-hour film of myself sleeping, and somehow that decision keeps echoing forward.
And then, inevitably, it will disappear again.
Until the next time.
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