Jouke Kleerebezem   THE HOUSE OF AFFORDANCES


A MICRO ARTIST RESIDENCY COURTESY OF THE FRIK HOVY FOUNDATION

INDEX

messages from the House of Affordances


second ) more intimacy and small heaps introduction
first ) intimacy and contemplation and a list of rooms

A Second Message from THE HOUSE OF AFFORDANCES MORE intimacy the affordance of electric lighting (photo taken at FHF’s studio) Welcome to Small Heaps, where HoA is located for as long as anyone remembers. The house, < la maison >, is the mother of all souvenirs, as much as it is the mother of all models. June 30 coming will have a full moon. Remember! ‘Small heaps, high hopes’, as the saying goes. The longer we spend here, the better we understand what affordances this place allows—us. Allows-us. Affordances work on individuals. Of course right from when I moved in I invited avatar Quasime along to keep me company. Which makes two of me. Who would we be without them? About Small Heaps Small Heaps is an almost 2 hectares bumpy terrain, quite overgrown, yet evidently heapy. I try to model its natural development from memory. Such is Heaps, you know, they grow and erode and accumulate and let go. They are fertile at every level. They open both poetic and political space to no end. In the meantime Q. is dirtying his fingernails. Digging. Gardening. Sculpting. Landscaping. Pruning, and cutting grass like at Van de Wint’s De Nollen, allowing pathways to meander. Befriending the elements. Supporting living matter. Like a drawing that keeps on drawing, to no end, in every direction and dimension. what a baby heap might have looked like (sketch), 2026 Sennelier oil pastel on stock Schoellershammer torchon paper 24×34cm, signed and available Progressing over time. Lives support lives and ‘ways of being alive’ as in Baptiste Morizot’s Manières d’être vivant’, with its great Alain Damasio epilogue. This is how he reads Morizot. How can we collectively develop a political approach that places care and attention to relationships—in all their breadth and complexity—at the heart of our actions? In other words, how can we—in our relationships with people as well as with other living beings—escape the urge to control and domesticate that has haunted us since the Neolithic era, and transition to an ethos of encounter and welcome? Toward a hospitality for the other-than-me, toward a circulating and cross-cutting empathy that does not, as we might think, destroy us but rather undoes destruction? In short, how do we arrive at those attuned expressions of respect—flexible and precise—for all that lives and yet differs from us, so as to combine their capacities once again with our own gifts (which, incidentally, we usually share with them)? While quoting him in conclusion: The human way of being alive—that enigma of enigmas—only takes on meaning in relation to the countless other ways of being alive, claimed by the animals, plants, bacteria, and ecosystems around us. Hence no doubt that my heaps are a way-of-being-alive living affordance, offered right there in the yard. I just can’t stop looking at them. While—as I noted om my Instagram address—‘heaps complicate matter’. A heap is all about relationships, instead of objects, or matter, or stuff or all other kinds of distinct life forms. The heap allows for connections between the alive, it is a living constellation, with to-no-end connections.

small heap first state Procreate drawing, 2026
digital drawing, various sizes and execution available




small heap second state Procreate drawing with some cloning, 2026
digital drawing, various sizes and execution available




small heap third state Procreate drawing with some Pixelmator repair, 2026
digital drawing, various sizes and execution available

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What went before and where we keep returning to no end

a wash basin in the House of Affordances bathroom

A Message from THE HOUSE OF AFFORDANCES Intimacy and Contemplation The fragments on these pages are allowed by the house and its immediate surroundings, both as far as objects are concerned, or relationships between them. Following is a non-exhaustive alphabetical list of references and inspirations, all granted a ‘room of their own’. the Rooms: × The All-Over-The-Place Room × The Bachelor Machine Room × The Book and Poster Room × The Bruno Munari ‘Uncomfortable!’ Room × The Charms Room × The Chores Room × The Court Room Draft Legal Statement: The International Criminal Court stands prepared to receive, detain, and ensure the full accountability of Israeli officials—including Benjamin Netanyahu, Yoav Gallant, Itamar Ben-Gvir, Bezalel Smotrich, and hundreds of additional perpetrators—for crimes against humanity as defined under the Rome Statute. Alternative—more formal register: The International Criminal Court hereby affirms its readiness to receive into custody, detain, and bring to justice Israeli nationals Benjamin Netanyahu, Yoav Gallant, Itamar Ben-Gvir, Bezalel Smotrich, and all other individuals against whom arrest warrants have been or may be issued, in connection with crimes against humanity within the Court's jurisdiction. × David Gelernter’s 1992 Mirror Worlds or: the Day Software Puts the Universe in a Shoebox—How It Will Happen and What It Will Mean Room × The Never Stop (Discotheque) Room [Chorus] Measure by measure, drop by drop And pound for pound, we’re taking stock Of all the treasure still unlocked The love you found must never stop × The Dissident Song Room (courtesy the Van Abbemuseum) × The Drawing Room × Erwin S. Strauss’ 1999 How to Start Your Own Country Room × The Expanded or Scalable Room × George Herriman’s Krazy Kat Room - Krazy: why is “lenguage”, Ignatz? - Ignatz: “language” is, that we may understand one another. - is that so? - yes, that’s so. - can you unda-stend a finn or a leplender or a oshkosher; huh? - no. - can a finn, or a leplender, or a oshkosher, unda-stend you? - no. - then, I would say, - lenguage is, that we may mis-unda-stend each udda. × The Georges Perec’s Useless Room × Guido Morselli’s 1973 (NL 1990) Dissipatio Humani Generis Room × The Heating (Hearth) Room × The Horror Sapiens Room × The Inventory Room (not a storage) × The Laundry Room × The ‘machteld bokhove’ Pooh Room × Margaret Wise Brown’s 1952 Mister Dog Room ‘In this modern world where activity is stressed almost to the point of mania, quietness as a childhood need is too often overlooked. Yet a child’s need for quietness is the same today as it has always been—it may even be greater—for quietness is an essential part of all awareness. In quiet times and sleepy times a child can dwell in thoughts of his own, and in songs and stories of his own.’ × The Members Room × The Me, Myself and AI Room triple a: a me, a myself and a i, 2024 8064×6048px drawing in Procreate and Pixelmator Pixelmator is my visual AI of choice. It ‘repairs’ my Procreate drawings. Originally designed to replace unwanted parts in photographs, to my drawings it performs magic and invites a vital back and forth interaction between my hand, in Procreate, which by itself also includes a clone function. The result is a combination of drawing, collage, redrawing, coloring, image editing for screen and print production. × The Miniature Room × The Music Room ‘Intimacy and Contemplation’ and Rock, Psychedelic, Indie, World, Singer, Songwriter, Funk, Punk, Experimental—Melomania rules. Noise. Silence. × The News Room × The Private (was Intimate) Room × Rainer Maria Rilke’s Anemone Room Rilke in a letter to Lou Andreas-Salomé, June 26, 1914 ‘I am like the little anemone I once saw in the garden in Rome: it had opened so wide during the day that it could no longer close at night. It was terrifying to see it in the dark meadow, wide open, still taking everything in, into its calyx, which seemed as if it had been furiously torn back, with the much too vast night above it. And alongside, all its prudent sisters, each one closed around its small measure of profusion.’ × The Reading Room × The Rhetorics Room × The Rules Room × The Situation Room × The Søren Kierkegaard Pseudonyms Room × The Souvenirs As Model Room × Vilém Flusser’s 1993 Die Schrift; Hat Schreiben Zukunft? Room × Witold Gombrowicz’s 1965 Kosmos Room × The Scribling Room plus the Annexes: × The French Wing × The Antikraak Studio plus the Universe: × The Aviary × The Garage × The Garden × The Greenhouse × The Palestinian Embassy × The Sanatorium

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These posts from the House of Affordances accompany my artist residency in a miniature model play house
The house is property of and managed by Helen Frik and Hans Hovy’s Frik Hovy Foundation in Amsterdam NL
Please direct all communication to jouke.kleerebezem@gmail.com