As co-founder of Studio Drift, Lonneke Gordijn has spent 20 years composing kinetic poetry out of drones, algorithms, and light. Her work isn’t about tech for tech’s sake. It’s a high-voltage remix of science, nature, and wonder, engineered to stop you mid-scroll and mid-thought. In Franchise Freedom, she unleashed 1,000 autonomous drones over Central Park, mimicking the flight patterns of starlings: no logos, no narration, but just raw motion, pulsing across the skyline in silence. The project drew 30,000 people to the park and garnered 10 million online impressions. But more than that, it flipped the script on public art, creating a living cloud of code above Manhattan. Then came Burning Man. In 2023, she dropped a drone-driven elegy for endangered species onto the Nevada desert — a glowing constellation that blurred the lines between activism, installation, and collective ritual. It was ephemeral. It was unmissable. And in case you did miss it, Lonneke's latest project, together with Ralph Nauta, is the DRIFT Museum, set to open in Amsterdam in late 2025.
