'Einstein’s Brains' (2005)

Location: Helix, meeting hall, floor 2

Visual artist Kees van Raaij (1946) is fascinated with technique, especially with mechanical constructions. He takes machines apart to turn them into new ones, like 'Einstein’s Brains’, one of several versions of 'brains' he has made. According to Van Raaij, Einstein was only a mediocre pupil at secondary school, but achieved a great deal nevertheless. 'Einstein’s Brains' are set in motion by a motion detector, so that the rods start moving via springs and cogwheels. Van Raaij about this: "Otherwise there is not a great deal of special things to be seen about them, just like the other brains that I have made. Then again, when scientists examined Einstein’s brains after his death in the 1950s, they did not find anything special either."
Humor is not foreign to the work created by Van Raaij. Earlier he took apart a copying machine, put the almost 3500 components into boxes on which the text could be read 'This is what it takes to Zerox' (to copy). It is also for this reason that he calls himself a 'spherologist' or a 'manic realist: "There are so many '-logists' living in my neighborhood that I have called myself a 'spherologist'. Indeed, the atmosphere is what counts: when people see my work and can smile at it they have understood it. You might compare it to the machines designed by the French artist Tinguely, of whom I am a great fan."
Van Raaij came into contact with the TU/e when he had an exhibition here for the retirement of his brother-in-law, about eighteen months ago. Dean prof. dr. Hans Niemantsverdriet liked his work so much that he purchased 'Einsteins Gehirrn'. At Van Raaij’s home he saw Einstein's statement painted on the wall: “Alles soll so einfach wie möglich gemacht werden, aber nicht einfacher”. (Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.) According to Niemantsverdriet this is also a perfect motto for the research group modeling of Chemical Engineering and Chemistry, where occasionally scientists are working for six months merely to install the equipment before they can carry out a test. This is precisely why, on floor 3 of STW, Van Raaij has also painted it on the wall.