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For most of his projects, Dutch new media artist Daan Roosegaarde literally thinks outside of the box. He envisions technology that is not confined to the screen, but that gets out of the computer, bangs on walls and doors and then slowly creeps into the environment and urban landscape.

That is the premise behind Roosegaarde’s interactive architectural artwork, “Dune 4.1,” which has been exhibited at major cities around the world, including New York, Hong Kong and Glasgow.

Now it has made its way to Jakarta, where it will be on display at Erasmus Huis until the end of July.

Roosegaarde is based in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, and is currently the creative director of Studio Roosegaarde, an artistic laboratory that he set up in 2006.

His inspiration for “Dune” was to engage visitors in a meaningful two-way dialogue and to transform a traditionally passive art experience into an active interaction.

“When I used to make static sculptures, it was sort of horrible that you’ll freeze the object into this project,” he said. “It was like wind in a glass bottle. It’s not wind anymore. It’s dead. I’ve wanted to make things that could be alive and that the visitor could be a part of that.”

“Dune” was originally 60 meters long, but only 10 meters of the work is on display in Jakarta. The entire design is simple and clean, made of black tubes with transparent tops, fitted with LED lights inside that make them glow.

The individual stalks of light-emitting sticks look like cattail plants jutting haphazardly out of the water.

The true magic of the piece lies in the interaction. “It’s not so much about the color of the lipstick, but if you can kiss or not,” Roosegarde said.

“Dune” is programmed to react to both motion and voice and responds with different combinations of light flashes and sounds. But beyond mimicking, it also seems like an intelligent being that has different patterns of behavior depending on its surroundings.

“ ‘Dune’ is not just a mirror that facilitates your action,” Roosegaarde said. “It has a mind of its own, pushing you to do certain things. It sort of manipulates you as well, playing a game with you, and I like that these artworks have character.”

These reactions are controlled by a complex smorgasbord of microchips, processors and sensors that run underneath the piece, all designed, made and produced at Roosegaarde’s studio.

These bits and pieces are so well integrated that most visitors will barely notice their presence.

“Technology is there to be experienced and not to be shown or bragged about,” Roosegaarde said. “It is very high tech, but we do not like to talk too much about the technology because it is more about what it generates.”

The artist’s fascination with technology stems from society’s close relationship with it. “As much as we like to think that we make technology, technology also makes us,” he said.

“I’m trying to use technology to create more human scenarios because artificial things can generate authentic human responses.”

Citing the example of our cellular phones, Roosegaarde said that even though these phones were essentially plastic shells that we carried everywhere, they connected us with our loved ones miles away.

In the same way, he hopes “Dune” will also help link different people as they interact with the work.

The Jakarta exhibit is meaningful to Roosegaarde because his family has ties to Indonesia that go all the way back to the 18th century.

His great grand uncle, Rudolf Kerkhoven, and great grand aunt, Jenny Roosegaarde Bisschop, were the basis for the main characters in “Heren van de Thee” (“Lords of the Tea”), a novel by Hella Haasse, one of the most important modern Dutch writers.

The historical novel talks about how the couple, who had a tea plantation in West Java, struggled with life in Indonesia.

After reading the book, visiting Indonesia was high on the artist’s wish list. This is the second time Roosgaarde has been to the country.

“The impression I had [of Indonesia] was a very rich, historical and spiritual country,” he said. “Let’s see how we can apply that to the contemporary world of today instead of just building thousands of shopping malls, which can just happen anywhere.”

Roosegaarde said the generic replication of ideas was one of the reasons there was a dearth of original content on the Internet. He lives by the principle of “copy and morph.” “You want things to be the same but different,” he said.

“In the same way that I am me, I am Daan, but when I’m in Jakarta, I feel different and I am different than I’m in the Netherlands.”

Thus, his artwork is not just art in the art sense, but always manages to incorporate innovation and elements of sustainability to help engage people with their current reality.

For instance, another previous piece, “Sustainable Dance Floor,” was not only aesthetically appealing, but also captured the energy produced when dancing on it to create electricity.

Roosegaarde has managed to establish a reputation for himself as a different sort of artist. He has given talks on his art at prominent gatherings such as the TEDxRotterdam event.

Some of his other works have also been featured at the Tate Modern Museum in London and the V2_Institute of the Unstable Media in Rotterdam.