Rafaël Rozendaal’s visual language isn’t tied to any platform. His work was always meant to function as a set of instructions that can live anywhere, online and offline. The language he chose is resolution‑independent, intended to age alongside technology. As display technology improves, so does the work, which is designed to adapt to any aspect ratio or resolution. He sees the works as scores; instructions rather than fixed objects.

Rooms exemplifies this approach perfectly. In much of his practice, Rozendaal seeks to create space with the minimum number of elements. In Rooms, by varying the speed of each line, he generates perspective and a sensation of space. He deliberately hovers on the edge: are these merely shapes moving in two-dimensional space, or do they suggest depth and environment? As a still image, that suggestion of space might not even register. He relishes this tension between figuration and abstraction. The piece is adaptable: it can be viewed on a very wide or a square screen, and on a phone it almost becomes an elevator with a downward movement. These principles of adaptability and dynamic composition sit at the core of his work.

His ideas challenge our understanding of the history of art and where his work sits within it: "...my feeling has always been that my work responds to the history of painting. I use the screen the way a painter uses a canvas to paint a landscape: I explore the formal possibilities of code. All my work comes from ideas in painting and abstraction, especially modernist painting, so there was no better place to show it than MoMA. It was an incredible opportunity; I grew up going to museums from a very young age and admiring paintings. I found my way outside painting, but much of my thinking remains a response to it. What I love about MoMA is that you can see this piece for ten minutes, then walk through the museum into history, and when you return, it reframes how you see my work and how those works informed me."