Angelo Vermeulen

Angelo Vermeulen (born 1971) is a Belgian visual artist.[1] His multidisciplinary oeuvre crosses over the boundaries of biology, technology and community. Vermeulen won the Witteveen+Bos Art+Technology Award in 2012.[2] He is crew commander of HI-SEAS, a Mars simulation study on improving the nutritional value of space food, funded by NASA.[3] As a TED Senior Fellow he travels the world to share information about his art and scientific projects.

Life and career

Vermeulen grew up in the Belgian city Sint-Niklaas. In 1998 Vermeulen completed his PhD on the deformation of the teeth of non-biting midges at the biology department of the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium. He also graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Leuven, where he studied photography.[4] Vermeulen left Belgium to work in London as a photographer together with Nick Waplington.[1] After his return to Belgium in 2001, he attended a two-year post-academic course at the Higher Institute for Fine Arts (HISK) in Belgium.[5] This became the starting point of an exploration trying to find out how biology and ecological processes could interact in art and materialize them as art installations.[6] In 2004 Vermeulen started working as a lecturer at the Sint-Lucas Art Academy.[7]

His art and community project Biomodd, launched in 2007, is still up and running in different locations across the world.[8] In the context of the TED Fellows program 2010, Vermeulen presented the concept and developments of the Biomodd project at the TED conference in Long Beach, California.

Vermeulen founded Space Ecologies Art and Design (SEAD), an artistic research platform on the architectures and biopolitics of space colonization in 2009. Two years after the platform was launched, Vermeulen started a doctoral research in Space habitat design and participatory systems engineering at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. Vermeulen is a member of the Arts & Science Topical Team of the European Space Agency (ESA).[9]

HI-SEAS

Vermeulen is crew commander of a four-month Mars simulation mission. HI-SEAS (Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation) takes place on the flanks of the Mauna Loa Volcano which is the closest approximation of the actual surface of Mars.[10] The mission intends to study improving the taste and nutritional quality of the meals consumed during a spaceflight.[11] Previous spaceflight simulations such as MARS-500 proved the importance of the quality of the food during long periods of isolation of this nature.[12] During the mission, Vermeulen is in charge of a six-man crew consisting of researchers from different backgrounds.[12] Among the other researchers Oleg Abramov, Simon Engler, Kate Green, Sian Proctor and Yajaira Sierra Sastre, Vermeulen is the only European member of the crew. Due to his experience in community building in complex conditions, such as Biomodd and other projects, he is commissioned as the leader of the crew. Aside from the food study, Vermeulen investigates the possibilities of remote-operated robotic agriculture in order to create semi-autonomous farms for Mars settlement.[12] The mission is initiated by NASA in collaboration with Cornell University of New York and the University of Manoa in Hawaii.[12]

Works

Vermeulen’s artistic engagement consists of actively bringing art’s radical freedom and focus on sensory, aesthetic and emotional directness to other domains, such as science, cultural communities, game culture and science fiction.[13]

Biomodd [ATH1] became a self-generating eco-system that gets stimulated by playing a computer game.[18] By playing the computer game, the computer’s components heat up and nurse the plants that surround them. Microscopic algae are used to simultaneously cool some of the hot components.[18] Filmmaker Morgan Riles directed a documentary on the Biomodd [ATH1] which has been screened at the 27th International Festival of Films on Art, and the Houston Cinema Arts Festival in 2009.[19]

Biomodd [LBA2] was conceived in Los Baños in the Philippines. The installation contained local recycled materials, however, certain parts of previous versions were integrated into the new structure as well. Vermeulen and Diego Maranan co-lead a team of 22 members with different backgrounds. The travelling, social and evolving nature of the project is essential to it even though all versions are conceptually and physically connected.[20]

Biomodd [TUDelft3]: In October 2011 Vermeulen was invited by Professor Frances Brazier of the Systems Engineering section at TU Delft (The Netherlands) for the Biomodd project at the university.[21]

Biomodd [NYC4] was developed as part of the art exhibition “ReGeneration” at the New York Hall of Science in New York. ReGeneration included seventeen artists.[22] In collaboration with the Immigrant Movement International, the Biomodd [NYC4] was part of Springmavera. In April 2012 Katherine Moriwaki and Vermeulen worked with the students of Parsons The New School for Design on the building of your own Bioreactor.[22]

Awards and process

Notes

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Resseler 2008, p. 5.
  2. ↑ N.N. 2012, p. 3.
  3. ↑ N.N. 24 July 2012 in: Knack.be
  4. ↑ Steveheydens 2006, p. 53.
  5. ↑ Steveheydens 2004, p. 40.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Pain 2009, in: Science
  7. ↑ Wynants, 2007
  8. ↑ Thysens 2012, p. 23.
  9. ↑ HI-SEAS. "Angelo Vermeulen's Biography".
  10. ↑ Van Dijk, 26 February 2012
  11. ↑ Boyle, 6 July 2012
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 12.3 Van Dijk, 26 February 2013
  13. ↑ Van Weelden, D. (2012). Onbegrensde intuitie. De projecten, de praktijk en de kunst van Angelo Vermeulen. Witteveen+Bos Kunst+techniek. p. 22. ISBN 978-94-90335-05-2.
  14. ↑ Kwakkenbos 2003, in: De Standaard
  15. ↑ Pain, E. (27 March 2009). "The Itinerant Artist". Science Careers. doi:10.1126/science.caredit.a0900041.
  16. ↑ Vermeulen, Angelo. "ATH1". Retrieved 4 May 2013.
  17. ↑ Regine. "A Living Game Computer as Social". Retrieved 4 May 2013.
  18. ↑ 18.0 18.1 TEDFellow Conference 2010.Angelo Vermeulen. Videorecording: TED. Long Beach California. Feb. 2010
  19. ↑ "BIOMODD [ATH1]: A Living Game Computer As Social Sculpture".
  20. ↑ Maranan, D.; Wynants M. (ed.) (2012). "Biomodd as Paradox". We can change the weather.
  21. ↑ Cohen, B. (12 October 2011). "People just show up and start designing". TU Delta 43 (29).
  22. ↑ 22.0 22.1 "Biomodd".
  23. ↑ "Seeker". Retrieved 5 May 2013.
  24. ↑ "Art+Technology Award 2012". Witteveen+Bos. Retrieved 5 May 2013.
  25. ↑ Thysens, M. (2012). "Van biologie en fotografie tot mediakunst.". In Beeld (5).
  26. ↑ http://vimeo.com/54433402

References