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 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 open. Just a small ripple in a very large ocean.
I’m fine with that.
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.
The film keeps accidentally staying relevant. At some point it got mixed into the whole “sleepstreaming” thing online. Then it got removed. Then discussed. Then referenced in an academic thesis (which still feels surreal). And now this.
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 I make things because I feel like making them.
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.
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