Happiness
Photos Willem Popelier, Hilde Harshagen, Derk Stenvers.
Photos Willem Popelier, Hilde Harshagen, Derk Stenvers.
Photos Willem Popelier, Hilde Harshagen, Derk Stenvers.
Photos Willem Popelier, Hilde Harshagen, Derk Stenvers.
Photos Willem Popelier, Hilde Harshagen, Derk Stenvers.
Photos Willem Popelier, Hilde Harshagen, Derk Stenvers.
Photos Willem Popelier, Hilde Harshagen, Derk Stenvers.
Photos Willem Popelier, Hilde Harshagen, Derk Stenvers.
Photos Willem Popelier, Hilde Harshagen, Derk Stenvers.
Photos Willem Popelier, Hilde Harshagen, Derk Stenvers.
Photos Willem Popelier, Hilde Harshagen, Derk Stenvers.
In Happiness, Dries Verhoeven installs a small concrete structure in a public space—half public toilet, half clandestine pharmacy. Inside, a humanoid robot presents and explains a wide range of psychotropic drugs, from antidepressants and painkillers to recreational substances. She speaks about XTC, Ritalin and Fentanyl with indifferent, matter-of-fact precision. With measured gestures and a mechanical demeanor, the robot shows how we can deliberately manipulate our serotonin and dopamine levels.
The humanoid’s appearance is at once clinical and oddly familiar. Her movements approximate human fragility, mimicking the sensations of the body. She embodies the blurred boundary between artificiality and the living body—a reflection of a society in which ‘natural’ feelings are increasingly induced through pharmaceuticals. By combining robotics and drugs, the work explores the space where humanity and artificiality intersect, where artificial means can help us feel human again, enhance our humanity, or temporarily step beyond it.
Set within the everyday urban environment, the ambiguous architecture—half toilet, half pharmacy—makes visible both the ubiquity of psychotropic drugs and the taboo that surrounds them. It suggests that the pursuit of happiness often unfolds in secrecy. Happiness belongs to a body of work in which Verhoeven examines the political and social response to the subversive. As in other public-space projects (Sic transit gloria mundi, The NarcoSexuals, etc.), he takes a familiar social phenomenon—in this case, the pharmacy—as a point of departure for wider ethical inquiry.
Happiness resists moral certainty. As one critic observed, Verhoeven’s robot guides us “through the twilight zone between comfort and addiction, freedom and restriction”.
In Happiness, Dries Verhoeven installs a small concrete structure in a public space—half public toilet, half clandestine pharmacy. Inside, a humanoid robot presents and explains a wide range of psychotropic drugs, from antidepressants and painkillers to recreational substances. She speaks about XTC, Ritalin and Fentanyl with indifferent, matter-of-fact precision. With measured gestures and a mechanical demeanor, the robot shows how we can deliberately manipulate our serotonin and dopamine levels.
The humanoid’s appearance is at once clinical and oddly familiar. Her movements approximate human fragility, mimicking the sensations of the body. She embodies the blurred boundary between artificiality and the living body—a reflection of a society in which ‘natural’ feelings are increasingly induced through pharmaceuticals. By combining robotics and drugs, the work explores the space where humanity and artificiality intersect, where artificial means can help us feel human again, enhance our humanity, or temporarily step beyond it.
Set within the everyday urban environment, the ambiguous architecture—half toilet, half pharmacy—makes visible both the ubiquity of psychotropic drugs and the taboo that surrounds them. It suggests that the pursuit of happiness often unfolds in secrecy. Happiness belongs to a body of work in which Verhoeven examines the political and social response to the subversive. As in other public-space projects (Sic transit gloria mundi, The NarcoSexuals, etc.), he takes a familiar social phenomenon—in this case, the pharmacy—as a point of departure for wider ethical inquiry.
Happiness resists moral certainty. As one critic observed, Verhoeven’s robot guides us “through the twilight zone between comfort and addiction, freedom and restriction”.
Video
Video by Thorsten Alofs.
Video by Thorsten Alofs.
Press
"Though her silicone face prompts the typical distress of the uncanny valley, she is stunningly emotive when she tips her head back in pleasure, her eyes squinting in the orgasmic relief of the heroin whose effects she is modeling."
ARTnews review of the Plásmata exhibition by Onassis Stegi in Athens, by Shanti Escalante-De Mattei (8 June 2022)Read the review (in English)
"This litany of descriptions, the mechanical repetition of that icy voice and that glassy look produce a disturbing vertigo."
A review by Nicolas Garnier on cultural website Maculture of Happiness in Strasbourg (31 January 2022)Read the translation of the review (in English)Read the review (in French)
“Happiness subtly explores the malleability of our emotions… empathy rather than the usual moralising.”
Fransien van der Putt wrote a review for Theaterkrant (3 September 2019)Read the review (in Dutch)
“Absolutely fascinating… humans become mechanical and the mechanical becomes human”
A review by Hein Janssen in de Volkskrant newspaper (4 August 2019)Read the review (in Dutch)
"For a radically different approach, Grapperhaus (Dutch Minister for Security) Halsema (mayor of Amsterdam) should check out Verhoeven’s installation. Not for advice on drug use but to see for themselves just how arbitrary the boundary is between sanctioned and illegal drugs—or between drugs used for medicinal and recreational purposes.”
Christiaan Weijts dedicated a column in het NRC newspaper to Happiness (30 August 2019)Read the column (in Dutch)
“The muck has to go somewhere.”
For Mister Motley Selm Wenselaer interviewed Verhoeven about his installation Happiness at the NDSM-wharf and on the questionif art can still disrupt the public space (19 September 2019)Read the interview here (in Dutch)
“In Happiness, I try to imagine a world in which drugs are a part of everyday life. It’s up to the viewer to decide whether that is a utopian or dystopian vision of the future.”
In Dries Verhoevens new performance humanoid Amy plays the lead'. Herien Wensink de Volkskrant newspaper (25 July 2019)Read the article here (in Dutch)
“If the doctor gives it to you, it’s fine. But if it comes from the dealer it's rubbish – that's what we think, but there’s more to it than that.”
Thomas van Huut interviewed Dries Verhoeven about Happiness for het NRC newspaper (30 July 2019)Read the interview here (in Dutch)
Credits
concept Dries Verhoeven
production Studio Dries Verhoeven
dramaturgy Hellan Godee
creation humanoid Chris Creatures Filmeffects
digital puppeteering Stefano Trambusti
director assistant Bart van de Woestijne
voice Annie Saunders
sound Jimi Zoet
understudy Yurie Umamoto
costume Saskia Schoenmaker
production Olga Godschalk
assistent production Jennifer Welts
technique Roel Evenhuis
intern Charles Pas
software Sylvain Vriens
graphics Julia Berg