Newsletter: Portrait Booth Launch & Houston Roast Booth — VOUW Update March 2026
Introducing the Portrait Booth
We've been asked the same question for years: can the Poem Booth do images too?
The honest answer was always: not yet, not the way we want it to. The Poem Booth works because it doesn't just generate, it listens. Your face, your moment, your story feed into something that comes back as language. That was the quality we refused to compromise.
The Portrait Booth is our attempt to do the same qualitative thing as the Poem Booth, but then with images. You press the button, pose, and within 30 seconds you receive an AI-generated artwork: a portrait of you in an artistic style, printed on the spot (if requested). Not a filter. Not a sticker. Something that genuinely tries to see you.
A collective experience
What surprised us is what happened around the booth, not just at it. Because the screen is visible to everyone, people can watch the portrait emerge together. At a regular photo booth the moment is private. Here people stayed.
They watched each other's portraits appear. They compared results. They laughed. What starts as a personal portrait quickly becomes a collective experience.
Where we want to take it
Our long-term ambition is to collaborate with living artists. The idea is simple: thousands of visitors experiencing the world through a specific artist's way of seeing. Not imitation, but a real collaboration between artist, machine and visitor.
We're still figuring out how to do this properly. But that's the direction we're heading.
Launch offer
If you book before April 1 (no joke!), you can have two add-ons — custom branding and a thematic poem style — combined for €750 (normally €1,500 — again, no joke).
Contact us to activate this deal, or visit poembooth.com.
The Studio Launch of Portrait Booth
A few weeks ago, some people close to us came to Generaal Vetterstraat on a Tuesday evening. Friends, partners, people we've worked with. We gave everyone a drink, walked them through the studio, showed them how everything is made — the hardware, the software, all of it built in house. The Portrait Booth ran all evening.
What struck us was how easily it pulled people in. Not because it was the loudest thing in the room, but because it gave them something to talk about. Several people told us it felt more like an experience than the other booths they'd encountered at events, which is the only compliment we really care about. See the video here.
Houston: Rain, sunshine and 47,013 Poems & Roasts
The Poem Booth and Roast Booth ran outdoors at City Place in Houston from November through January, together with our installation Chairwave. During that time the city saw some genuinely severe rainstorms. The booths stayed up. They kept running.
The numbers: 21,267 poems · 25,746 roasts · 47,013 total — about 401 poems and 486 roasts per day, nearly 900 encounters daily.
One thing surprised us: the roast outsold the poem. In the Netherlands, people approach the roast a bit cautiously. In Houston it was often the first stop. There's something interesting there. People enjoy being seen even when being seen means being gently mocked. Maybe especially then. The roast created permission to laugh at yourself in public, which turns out to be a surprisingly connective thing to do with strangers.
More about the Poem Booth and its editions (Roast & Portrait Booth) at poembooth.com.
Meanwhile: Bloomlight S on the road
While the Poem Booth keeps traveling, we've also been busy bringing Bloomlight S into the world. The work recently received a German Design Award, which was a wonderful encouragement for the project.
Earlier this year we presented five Bloomlight S pieces at Maison & Objet in Paris, together with Polspotten, in their lounge space. Shortly after that we exhibited at Ambiente Frankfurt, meeting many new fans and partners. Bloomlight S is now starting its own journey, from Saudi Arabia to Japan. It's exciting to see the work travel and find new homes around the world.
Collaboration with Lach je Lens
We're proud to announce a collaboration with Lach je Lens, a Breda-based company known for creating joyful photo experiences at events, festivals and corporate gatherings. What we especially like about them: they design and build their own booths, just like we do. This gives them full control over the experience and lets them keep improving their technology.
Starting April 1 (no joke) they will begin working with the Poem Booth as an additional sales and distribution partner in the Netherlands and Belgium, helping bring the Poem Booth to more events and audiences. We're very excited to get started.
Looking for international partners
We are interested in rolling out the Poem Booth, Roast Booth and Portrait Booth internationally. We're looking for local partners who know their markets, have a strong network in the corporate and event industry, are slow-tech minded, and are eager to take care of sales and logistics. We see good opportunities in Europe, the Middle East and Asia.
If you know someone — or have ambitions yourself — we'd love to hear from you. Please contact our investing partner Gervaise Coebergh via contact@poembooth.com.
Things That Inspired Us This Month
📖 Why Fish Don't Exist — A biography of a 19th-century taxonomist that becomes something else entirely. About obsession, order, chaos, and the stories we build to survive uncertainty. One of the best books we've read in a long time. goodreads.com
✉️ Letters from Steve Jobs' Network — The Steve Jobs Archive published a collection of letters and notes. For anyone who makes things and occasionally wonders why. letters.stevejobsarchive.com
🤖 "I hope this message finds you well" — A tiny hand-cranked machine that does nothing except display that phrase. Somehow the most accurate artwork about email we've ever seen. instagram.com/stoccafisso_design
🍉 A watermelon seller designing a PCB — On a market. With full confidence. The video is three seconds long and we've watched it twelve times. x.com/hamptonism
🏢 The future company, already running — Agents working for you, autonomously, at scale. This is happening now in China. x.com/EHuanglu
🎵 Fred again.. with Mike Skinner and Underworld — We don't have much to say about this except: turn it up. x.com/karpe_noktem
🧵 Old water tank, new embroidery — Someone turned an industrial water tank into a cross-stitch artwork. Scale, patience, and the best possible use of both. x.com/HerodotusWave
🚲 3D printed wheels without air — The design is genuinely fascinating and we keep coming back to it. x.com/IlirAliu_
📊 Parents spend less time on screens — A chart showing that adults with young children use screens significantly less than adults without. We found this quietly hopeful. x.com/AzizSunderji
📚 General relativity for babies — Or for the rest of us. A picture book explanation of general relativity that is, somehow, the clearest one we've encountered. x.com/PhilosophyOfPhy
