Newsletter: When presence speaks louder than noise.
This autumn has brought recognition we didn't expect, partnerships that just make sense, and confirmation that people are hungry for technology that actually cares. From Rotterdam to Houston, from design juries to event spaces, one thread connects it all: slowtech works.
Thank you for reading, and don't miss our inspiration tips at the end.
Justus & Mingus
Founding Partners of VOUW
Bloomlight S: Recognition in Motion
Design juries don't often use words like "poetic gesture" when describing a lamp. But that's exactly what happened this season.
German Design Award WinnerBloomlight S took the prize in the Furniture category, with the jury noting something we've felt from the start: "The elegantly curved form and sensitive interaction lend the object an almost animate presence... emotional presence and aesthetic clarity merge into a harmonious whole."
We were also shortlisted for the Frame Awards 2025 in Best Lighting, where the jury described it beautifully: "Lighting design has long evolved from a purely functional role to an emotional one... the object itself recognises when it is needed and responds with a poetic gesture."
Recognition matters. Not because of ego, but because it signals something larger: the world is ready for design that doesn't demand attention, but earns it through presence and care.
Order at the introductory price of €5.000. Each piece comes with a certificate of authenticity. vouw.com/bloomlight-s
Poetry Now Available in New York
Jackie Guscott MacAllen brought our Poem Booth to the United States. What started as a single booth in Manhattan has become something larger: a distributed network across North America, ready to bring AI-generated poetry to festivals, markets, corporate events, and galleries. Poetry, personalized in seconds. A moment of reflection in a world built for speed.
For bookings in North America: reach out to Jackie.
When Partnerships Understand Philosophy
Some collaborations feel obvious the moment they happen.
Nick Bruynesteijn from Brownys Event Productions saw Bloomlight S and immediately understood what it meant. Not just as a beautiful object, but as something that mirrors how his company works, open to the unexpected, committed to creating moments that stick.
Brownys has been renting our Poem Booths across Europe, weaving poetry into events where people gather. They create experiences that linger long after the lights fade. Nick gets what we're after: where VOUW creates physical works that slow people down and pull them into the present, Brownys orchestrates entire environments where connection happens naturally.
Different approaches. Same philosophy: technology and design should serve human experience, not replace it.
Bloomlight S now welcomes visitors to the Brownys office, a living reminder that the best client meetings start with wonder, not a conference table.
This is the kind of collaboration we're interested in.
Where We Are/Were
🇩🇰 City Gazing Aarhus, Aarhus The tenth(!) chapter for City Gazing. From August 30 till September 7, we were proud to collaborate with Aarhus Festuge. Suspended above Bispetorv, this luminous map revealed how Aarhus has grown over the past 100 years, shaped by early streets, rail lines, and modern planning. A custom soundscape by Darius Timmer brought the city’s story to life.
🇳🇱 Dutch Design Week, Eindhoven October 18–26, we were at the Evoluon as part of Digital Futures at Next Nature Museum. Bloomlight S standing as a radical statement: while the world fights for your attention, this lamp fights to bring you into attention. Technology that doesn't demand. Technology that welcomes.
🇳🇱 Margreeth Olsthoorn, Rotterdam As of September, Bloomlight S is on view at the iconic avant-garde fashion boutique on Wilhelminakade. Displayed among Rick Owens and Yamamoto, a living light object within a collection that dissolves boundaries between fashion, art, and culture. On view and available for order through December 2025.
🇺🇸 City Place, Houston: VOUW Art Installations This is a big one. November 21–January 11, Houston, USA, will host Chairwave, Poem Booth, and our Roast Booth (a wonderfully irreverent twist that roasts your photo instead of poeticizing it). In collaboration with Weingarten Art Group, we're transforming City Place Plaza into a space where people pause, photograph, write, laugh, and connect.
Chairwave invites spontaneous conversations. Poem Booth turns moments into personalized poetry. Roast Booth? It delivers witty, personalized insults. Together, they're a masterclass in how technology can serve human experience, whether serious or playful. Free admission. cityplacenow.com/events/vouw-art-11-21-25/
The Chairwave Effect: When Design Changes Behavior
We recently spoke at E-Day (Emerce's marketing and technology conference) about something we've been obsessed with since 2019: why public space has become a place to pass through, not linger in, and how the Chairwave (video how it works) offers a radical solution.
Read the full story on LinkedIn: Justus shares the moment at Zaandam Station that inspired everything, the MIT research on how public behavior has changed, and why we believe design can help us reconnect. The story has resonated deeply, worth reading the comments too.
Poetry for the Holiday Season
When winter slows everything down, poetry finds you in unexpected places.
The Poem Booth creates special moments at holiday markets, company celebrations, and team events. Instead of just scrolling or small talk, people pause. They take a photo. They wait. A poem appears, one that captures exactly what they're feeling in that moment.
Perfect for: 🎄 Holiday markets & festivals
🎉 Company parties & team celebrations
🤝 Employee events & gatherings
This season, give your guests an experience they will actually remember.
Ready to bring poetry to your event? DM us or visit poembooth.com.
Things That Inspired Us This Month
🎥 Someone Built a Working Camera Halloween Outfit A 32,000MP 16-bit medium format linear scan camera disguised as a costume. Why? Because the answer to "can we do it?" is often "yes," even when the question should have been "should we?" Beautifully unnecessary. reddit.com/r/raspberry_pi
🔒 LocallyAI Privacy is a luxury now. This iPhone app lets you ask ChatGPT sensitive questions without your data leaving your device (they just launched a Mac app too). Fair warning: the models are heavy and large, you'll need a powerful, fairly recent iPhone to run them smoothly. We use it ourselves. locallyai.app
🎙️ Esther Perel & Trevor Noah Conversation Two thoughtful people touching on what we care deeply about: people and technology. How connection survives in a hyperconnected world. What Now with Trevor Noah Podcast
📺 José Andrés: Chef's Table A man with a heart and a taste for the finest of Spain. Netflix. Watch it.
🎨 HANAKATOBA AI Image Generation This creator has won every award (in our opinion) that exists for AI image generation. If you care about prompting as an art form, follow the work. instagram.com/hanakatoba
Left the original The Raft of the Medusa of Gericault, right when you would tilt the camera to left side
🖼️ Viewing Art from New Angles A new Low-Rank Adaptation of Qwen allows AI to generate images from different perspectives. Imagine walking inside a Géricault painting you love, seeing it from an angle only the artist ever saw. twitter.com/multimodalart
✨ Whatever This Is We don't even know what's happening here, but we can't look away. twitter.com/SusieM414141
Thank you, for being part of our journey
For more behind-the-scenes moments, travels, and poetic experiments,
follow us on Instagram: @vouwstudio or @poembooth.ai
And if you have any questions or just want to say hi — just reply to this email.
We love hearing from you.