Dossier Luis Negrón van Grieken — Media Art Practice Since 2002

135 works spanning over two decades of live cinema, installation, and curatorial practice couldn't be captured in a chronological grid without losing their thematic connections — the archive needed navigation forms of its own, shaped by the work itself, rather than standard filter lists. At the same time, digital works were to become directly sellable for the first time, without DRM friction or third-party platforms.

Starting Point / Problem

135 projects from over two decades of practice — live cinema, media scenography, installation, sound art, teaching, and curatorial work — existed without a shared structure. A classic portfolio grid with year/format filters would have worked, but it would have missed exactly what defines this practice: the thematic, often associative connections between works from entirely different years and contexts. The navigation itself had to be an artistic statement, not a neutral interface pattern.

In addition, digital works were to become directly sellable for the first time — without DRM friction, without a third-party platform, and without the sale feeling like a foreign element within the curatorial presentation.

My Role / Contribution

Concept, UX design, and creative direction — implemented through frontend development:

Archipel / VideoCompass — navigation as compass: for the video works, not a playlist but a walkable thematic plane. Each video is placed, based on title and venue keywords, at a position on a toroidal surface between two poetic axes — Light ↔ Shadow (vertical), Sound ↔ Movement (horizontal). Navigation happens via arrow keys/touch like a compass; the surface has no edges (exit right = re-enter left), so the archive has no "end," only directions. One's own position is shareable as a coordinate — a link leads exactly back to the point where one stood
Constellation graph — navigation as network: complementing this, a force-directed graph of all 135 projects built on a hand-curated 18-concept vocabulary (a content axis, defined independently of format/year by reading all 135 project descriptions in one session and tagging each with 2–5 concepts). Hover/tap isolates a thematic cluster; a second tap opens the project — exploring before choosing
Sales as a third movement: directly purchasable from both exploration paths. Digital editions via Stripe checkout; instead of copy protection, a personalized watermark (Name – Email – Date) applied to the PDF in the buyer's browser — the protection lies in attribution, not restriction. Complemented by a visibly designed promo-code path for curated access (press, colleagues), with a per-email limit instead of an anonymous discount code
Physical originals: deliberately no one-size-fits-all checkout — books are directly purchasable, originals starting at €1,800 go through a "price on request" conversation rather than an impulse-buy button
Bilingualism: EN/ES via shared page templates, so that the concept poems and descriptions retain their own voice in each language, rather than laying a translation layer over a fixed structure

Solution / Result

Two distinct navigation languages for an archive that doesn't reduce itself to categories — and a sales flow that emerges from exploration itself rather than interrupting it.

/archipel/: video works as a walkable compass plane instead of a list — the journey through the archive becomes the experience itself
/constellation/: the entire body of work as a single, explorable relationship space — concepts as hubs, projects as nodes
Edition shop with a complete purchase-to-download flow, where the watermarking step applies equally to paying buyers and promo-code redeemers
Physical editions via two purchase modes appropriate to their respective price tiers

Impact / Value

Navigation as artistic statement: two purpose-built exploration forms (compass, constellation) instead of borrowed e-commerce patterns — browsing the archive itself conveys something about the artistic stance behind it
Latent connections made visible: the 18-concept vocabulary and the constellation graph reveal thematic relationships between works that would never have appeared side by side on purely formal or chronological grounds
Sales without breaking the experience: digital editions directly sellable for the first time, with protection through personalization instead of DRM — the purchase feels like a continuation of the exploration, not a foreign element
Curatable reach: the promo-code system allows targeted access (press, network) with clear limits, instead of an open discount code
International reach: a bilingual presence (EN/ES) that carries the poetic texts of the concept layer as well, not just the UI strings

Role

Creative Director · UX Designer · Frontend Development · Concept

Skills

JavaScript · Player Interfaces · React · d3-force · pdf-lib · Astro · Firebase Functions · Stripe API · Concept · UX Design · System Architecture · Navigation · Culture · Reference · B2C

Dossier Luis Negrón van Grieken — Media Art Practice Since 2002

Starting Point / Problem

My Role / Contribution

Solution / Result

Impact / Value

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