Rafaël Rozendaal

Rafaël Rozendaal makes artworks that live in a browser. Since the early 2000s, he has used websites as self-contained spaces for color, movement and interaction. Often built from a few geometric elements, these works develop through the relationships between shapes and the screen that contains them. They can be encountered on a personal device or enlarged into an architectural installation.

His approach joins drawing to programming. A work can begin as a storyboard on paper before its behavior is translated into code. The resulting animation is generated in real time and adapts to the proportions of its display.

Ownership and access have been central to this practice. Many early works occupy their own web domain, which serves as both title and address. His Art Website Sales Contract formalized a way to collect these websites while keeping them publicly accessible, addressing the responsibilities of artist and collector. His later blockchain works extend this interest in how an artwork can belong to someone while remaining available to everyone.

The screen also supplies material for physical works. Abstract Browsing (2014) replaces the contents of web pages with colored rectangles, exposing their underlying layouts; selected compositions become woven tapestries. In 2010 he initiated BYOB (Bring Your Own Beamer), an open exhibition format in which artists bring projectors to a shared space. These projects connect the individual experience of browsing with collective and material forms of display.

Rozendaal’s NFT projects include Endless Nameless (2021), whose release supported the digital-art organization Rhizome, and subsequent series of responsive moving images. Light, his 2024–25 presentation at the Museum of Modern Art, brought a selection of website works to a large screen in the museum’s Garden Lobby. His work is held by MoMA, the Whitney Museum, the Centre Pompidou and the Stedelijk Museum.