Wilfried Hou Je Bek
Wilfried Hou Je Bek (1975) uses algorithms to design psycho-geographic walks through cities and other areas. The geographic and psychological output is visualized with the help of simple software. Wilfried is a ‘culture hacker’ who develops generative psychogeography. Inspired by concepts of drift (dérive) from Romanticism and, later, the Situationists around Guy Debord, Wilfried uses algorithmic routes to explore a city in non-intuitive ways. Houkebek organizes dérives, where people walk through a city by taking computer code as a guideline, using the body as a means to perform software. Recent commissions include work for the city of Dordrecht, Psy Geo Conflux (New York), the PixelACHEfestival (Helsinki), RAM5 (Riga), Urban Festival (Zagreb), Urban Drift (Berlin), Impakt (Utrecht), Stedelijk Museem (Amsterdam), V2_ (Rotterdam). In 2004 he won the Transmediale software art prize for .walk, a futuristic project for open space that transforms cities into computers.
