The remarkable picture in our advertisements, showing a bionic hand and a human hand hovering above a MU1, was used as an illustration in Eelco Grimm’s essay “Conscious about consciousness” half a year ago. This essay was an effort to help understand how the human mind works, making it easier to feel empathy for people with a different opinion. These days it is more important than ever to share and spread this message…
Many people asked us about the background of this picture and it is time to explain its history. When he was a teenager, Grimm Audio’s co-founder Guido Tent had a neighbour friend, Arie Rommers. At 13 years old this boy was so unfortunate to find an old hand grenade in the woods and bring it back home. There it exploded and he lost his hand. Many years later he connected to Guido on Facebook and told him that he was one of the first people in The Netherlands to receive a bionic hand that responds to the nerve signals in his arm. Now he can even play guitar with his hand! He offered to help promoting Grimm Audio whenever we’d like him to.
Eelco Grimm got inspired by Arie’s story and envisioned the “when science creates art” picture, referencing Michelangelo’s painting on the Sistine Chapel ceiling. Sound engineer Brendon Heinst of audiophile record label TRPTK is also professional photographer and he loved to do the photo shoot. Eelco preferred to have a real musician for the human hand in stead of a model and Brendon asked cellist Saskia Le Poole. And so the shoot took place, in a photo studio in ’s Hertogenbosch, just 40km north of Grimm Audio’s headquarters in Veldhoven.
