Rhizomebook.com | Jan van der Til | Concepts of work | Curriculum vitae | Support Mondriaan Fund
Rhizomebook.com was initiated by the Dutch artist Jan van der Til as an open reflection on, and extension of, his artistic practice. The website functions as a continuously evolving digital book that documents ideas, interventions, and developments over time. It is not intended to present a singular narrative or definitive form, but rather to operate as a living system of thinking and making.
The title Rhizomebook refers to the concept of the rhizome, as described by the philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. A rhizome is a non-hierarchical, decentralized structure in which any point can connect to any other point. Unlike a tree, which unfolds through roots and branches according to a linear logic, a rhizome grows through detours, multiplicities, and unpredictable pathways. This conceptual framework forms both the structural and conceptual foundation of Rhizomebook.
In Van der Til’s work, the notion of the “book” extends beyond the conventional form of bound pages and fixed sequences. Each Book, often designated by a Roman numeral, functions as a conceptual and material node within a broader rhizomatic constellation. These nodes may take many forms: websites, texts, installations, objects, videos, or collections. They exist autonomously while remaining interconnected within an expanding network of artistic and theoretical explorations.
Within this structure, Rhizomebook functions as connective tissue between the works. It is not a catalogue or archive, but a generative environment in which ideas circulate, intersect, and evolve. Works are not organized through chronology or hierarchy, but through associative relations, thematic, formal, contextual, or speculative. This approach reflects a broader understanding of knowledge as unstable, interdependent, and perpetually in motion.
Each node within Rhizomebook operates as a site of interaction: a moment of convergence between media, disciplines, and references. These may include Van der Til’s own works, as well as essays or external sources ranging from artists and philosophers to scientific models and cultural artifacts. Readers are invited to navigate these nodes non-linearly, following their own trajectories of interest and constructing unique readings of the whole. In this way, the audience becomes an active participant in shaping the meaning and structure of the book.
This rhizomatic model also reflects Van der Til’s resistance to fixed authorship and institutional boundaries. His practice foregrounds ambiguity, context sensitivity, and systemic thinking, often drawing inspiration from organic processes such as the resilience of wild plants like horsetail and ground elder, species that resist cultivation and thrive in neglected spaces. In a similar way, Rhizomebook resists domestication, offering space for divergence, multiplicity, and critical reflection.
Ultimately, Rhizomebook proposes an alternative mode of reading, thinking, and creating, one that embraces complexity and contradiction while foregrounding the interdependence of content, form, and environment. It is not merely a representation of artistic practice, but a work in itself: a living, thinking system that grows through relations.