Exhibition:

Pure Gold

by Kamiel Rongen

18 Sep 2015
18 Sep 2025

It's an artwork, but you can use it. Pee in our urinals while enjoying the hypnotizing videos by Kamiel Rongen. We are happy to collect your fluid contribution and create a powerful fertilizer for our park.

Five urinals and five video screens are placed against the façade of the Mediamatic Biotoop. The screens display audio-visual artworks created by Kamiel Rongen and with the urinals, we collect the urine kindly donated by visitors. Whilst the films may appear digitally created, they are entirely natural and made with a most natural ingredient; the artists' own urine! Taking inspiration from the softer golden colours of urine, Rongen froze his urine before adding it to many different types of oily substances. The ice, pee and oils all react with each other to create a world where gravity constantly changes, and Rongen organically follows these reactions. To make the experience complete, Rongen composed soundscapes to accompany the act of peeing.

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Pure Gold installation - A micro cosmos, breathing, growing and dancing. Pure Gold is an installation by audio-visual artist Kamiel Rongen and Mediamatic. It consists of five different videos, projected on five windows on the façade of the Mediamatic building on the Dijksgracht. Kamiel Rongen used his own urine to create these videos. While peeing one can watch his work. Kamiel Rongen, Mediamatic Foundation

Using urine in smarter ways

Various institutions around the world are beginning to prove the usefulness of this resource that we can all access but often ignore. Experiments have shown that urine can be used as an effective fertiliser, providing an alternative to expensive and harmful chemical fertilisers.

Most of the urine you produce is water, but at least 5% is comprised of the macro- nutrients most gardeners are familiar with; Nitrogen, Phosphorous and Potassium (as well as some trace micro-nutrients). Whilst the actual composition of your urine will vary due to diet, generally your urine is a well-balanced nitrogen rich fertiliser straight out of your body!

How we use your donation

Once collected, we store the urine for a while to kill off any harmful pathogens. Next we dilute the urine with water and then it is ready for use! There are a variety of application methods; we simply use a watering can to apply the urine directly to the soil of our plant boxes (avoiding the leaves and fruits).

This installation has impacts that ripple beyond our local project. In developing regions diverting wasted urine to fertiliser can have a significant economic value. Immense benefits can be recognised at the individual level, and can scale all the way up to industrial operations.

So, since you produce something every day that can be helpful to the environment, the earth and people the world over, you can help us by peeing in our urinals! Our installation makes it even more wonderful.

About the artist

Kamiel Rongen is an audio-visual artist who often goes by the name of Hyde Park; a title he uses as a synonym for landscapes in all shapes and forms. He creates an experience through the use of music and film, combining the two in surreal kaleidoscopic landscapes produced with chemical and organic components filmed within a fishbowl.

Information

Pure Gold by Kamiel Rongen and Mediamatic
Open 24/7

Mediamatic Biotoop, Dijkspark 6, Amsterdam
The installation is located on the streetside of Mediamatic Biotoop.

Music and Video by Kamiel Rongen
This video is dedicated to Mediamatic
It's part of my upcoming album Onder de diepte (still looking for a label with taste, feel free contacting me).

Thanx Willem Velthoven, Jans Possel, Sara Berton, Rosa Kieft, Rosalie Bak and all the others of the Mediamatic team for helping realizing my latest pee art installation!

www.hyde-park.nl www.mediamatic.net

This is the Pure Gold installation at Mediamatic.
5 screens video projection, with landscapes made out of pee.
With 5 speakers behind each window for the little sounds, and 1 big speaker for the soundscapes.
All the pee will be saved fertilized and used to feed the plants in the neighborhood.

You can visit the installation at Mediamatic, Amsterdam.

www.hyde-park.nl
www.mediamatic.net

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Collecting tanks - This is were we collect all the urine donated by generous visitors with full bladders. One one side rain water, on the other pee: their combination is the fertiliser for our plants Rutger de Jong

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- Willem Velthoven about the project Anisa Xhomaqi

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Girls exploring Pure Gold - Mediamatic facade with audio-visual urinals experience Margherita Soldati

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Mediamatic streetview - Mediamatic Biotoop seen from the streetside of the Dijksgracht. With a perfect look on the installation Pure Gold, by Kamiel Rongen + Mediamatic. Willem Velthoven