SEADSSPACE ECOLOGIES ART AND DESIGNSEADS
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SEADS (Space Ecologies Art and Design) is a transdisciplinary and cross-cultural collective of artists, scientists, engineers and activists. Its members come from all corners of the world, from places such as the Philippines, Belgium, the UK, Malaysia, Kosovo, and the US. SEADS is actively engaged in deconstructing dominant paradigms about the future and develops alternative models through a combination of critical inquiry and hands-on experimentation.
Over the past years, the collective has created a range of paradigm-shifting projects in which different domains such as visual art, neuroscience, ecology and space technology are blended in unique ways. SEADS employs its own signature methodology which is centered around community building, co-creation and bottom-up design. SEADS believes that these approaches are key to unlocking collective intelligence, a prerequisite for generating more diversified and inclusive futures. Furthermore, SEADS also embraces a hacking and open-source ethos, with the goal to engage as many people as possible in the activities and ideas that they initiate.
Since 2009, the collective has co-created more than 40 art projects, together with local communities in Europe, the Americas, Asia and the Pacific. Some of their most well-known community art projects are Biomodd and Seeker. In these projects they have personally collaborated with hundreds of participants and actively engaged with diverse international audiences.
Jeroen Verschuren
Jeroen is a mixed media artist, and aviator interested in humanities, art, and technology and how these themes are often intertwined.
Trained as an airline pilot, his experience varies from flight instruction to flying cargo, corporate, and for airlines in the US, Africa, and Europe. As an artist, his work embodies some of the themes he experienced during flight.
Jeroen is interested in ideas that examine and rethink our existence in the universe and more specifically, the mental, physical, and philosophical relationship between humans and the different environments we inhabit or could possibly inhabit.
His current responsibilities within SEADS are to further develop data sculptures in 'Engines of Eternity' and develop a generative model for module distribution in 'Evolving Asteroid Starships'.
Karine Van Doninck
Karine Van Doninck is an Associate Professor at the University of Namur and founder of the Laboratory of Evolutionary Genetics and Ecology (LEGE). Her research interests integrate molecular genetics, organism evolution, evolution of reproductive modes, comparative genomics and invasive species. She has received several prestigious grants and is considered a leading figure in her field. Karine also has a keen interest in contemporary art and founded the arts initiative DRUUM in Brussels.
Matt Woodham
Matthew Woodham is an artist and experience designer. Through his work, he aims to expose the system dynamics of nature by integrating mathematical and physical models to describe the common behaviours of complex systems. His academic background in cognitive neuroscience informs an interdisciplinary approach which aims to bring together ideas and communities across art, music, science and technology. He uses live settings to create immediate, real-time experiences in both physical and online spaces.
Frederico David Alencar de Sena Pereira
Fred is by nature curious about how and why organic or mechanical things work. He holds a BSc in Computer Engineering and Master in Mechanical Engineering along with extensive self-thought knowledge in 3D-modeling and 3D-printing. Born in Brazil, he is working on 3D bioprinters to produce human organs . He contributed to the making of a Space 3D Bioprinter named Organaut, which was launched to the ISS in december 2018 to conduct several experiments with cells and crystals. Fred's mind lives in the non-defined borders of science, art and engineering and a good dose of philosophy,capoeira and freeride longboarding make him a happy person.
Rudolf Arnold
Rudolf Arnold studied mathematics and physics at the University of Ulm and became a teacher at a vocational grammar school. Since 1980, he has conducted several media education projects. He was cofounder of Radio free FM, which got on air in 1995. In 1996, he produced an award-winning radio feature about ecstasy.
Since 2006, he has been a successful Cosplayer. In the role of Hatsune Miku, a teenage virtual Japanese popstar, he was an essential part of the international performance Still Be Here.In 2013, he joined the smart fashion community. Since 2014, he has been an experimental musician. In 2016 and 2017, he won awards at Fashion Hack Day Berlin.
2018, he created a novel sensor with sex researcher Dr Nicole Prause. This sensor became the key component of a system for the sonification of sexual arousal and was presented at the 4th International Congress on Love and Sex with Robots. The PLAY ME system was also presented at the 4th interdisciplinary conference Taboo – Transgression – Transcendence and at the 1st Experimance Festival Saarbrucken. At the 7th International Congress on Love and Sex with Robots, he presented his first thoughts about a Pleasure Spacesuit Prototype. Parts of this work and PLAY ME were included in a Convergence Seminar 2023 Antwerpen presentation. During an art show at the Interdisciplinary Conference Taboo – Transgression – Transcendence in Art & Science 2023 in Malta, he presented the narrative audio Cosmic Caresse, which is based on his current fashion and research project, A Multisensory Pleasure Suit for Space Sexology and Earthly Delights.
Kat Pegler
Kat is a multidisciplinary artist, composer and researcher exploring more-than-human perspectives in the context of the climate emergency. She runs Kerbside Collective which works at the intersection of art and sustainability through a global-lens, and is co-founder of Leo, an award winning reading platform for people who are neurodivergent in the creative sector. She is a folklore enthusiast and Morris Dancer, through her mythmaking collective Pure Imagination, and enjoys creating drone harmonies with the caws of the crows. Find out more here.
Louis Rutherford
Louis is the London Associate of the SEADS Network and has curated their Biomodd project in London and in European residencies with Supernova and De Warande. In 2015, he graduated with an MSc/Dip in Urban Regeneration from Bartlett College, UCL and continues to link with the university as a Core Associate of PPL PWR. He is Greening Coordinator of Participatory City and also works to install and maintain living walls and roofs across the UK.
Olga Mrozek
I am a multidisciplinary designer, a illustrator and a tattoo artist who finds interest in issues, development, structure, and functioning of human society.
I enjoy creating concepts that challenge and provoke the viewer as I believe that the change begins with the thought.
I'm a graduate of Product Design from the Glasgow School of Art.
Currently working as a designer at On*Arte as well as freelance Foresight Analyst, Illustrator and tattoo artist.
Pim Tournaye
Pim is an improviser, musician, and technologist. He likes making things, people, processes and dynamics talk to each other. Currently studying Interactive Media Arts at NYU's ITP program, he researches and makes projects around communication and its multiplicity.
Jorge Guevara
Jorge is a Colombian choreographer, experience & interaction designer based in Brussels whose work lies in the intersection of interface technologies and sociology. His choreographies propose playgrounds where the body in time-space becomes a source of non-binary knowledge. He creates frameworks with a responsive/interactive/relational aspect where the subject of attention is the public, where the people come together. His focus is on decolonizing knowledge where the body is a source of healing.
Diego Maranan
Diego is an artist, academic, and activist who works in the area of human-technology interaction. Through technology research and intermedia artistic practice, he investigates, critiques, and reimagines the relationship between humans and the world we inhabit. He holds a Marie Curie fellowship at Plymouth University; teaches at the University of the Philippines Open University; advises for WeDpro, a feminist nonprofit that empowers marginalized women and youth in the Philippines; and co-founded Curiosity, a Manila-based design strategy firm. As one of SEAD’s core members, Diego worked on an extensive range of Biomodd projects in the Philippines, New York and Europe.
Angelo Vermeulen
Angelo is a space systems researcher, biologist, and community artist. With his multidisciplinary background, he collaborates closely with practicing scientists, while also creating multimedia art installations, and building communities through design and co-creation. In 2013 he was crew commander of the NASA-funded HI-SEAS Mars simulation in Hawaii. Currently he is doing research on interstellar travel at Delft University of Technology. He has lived in many corners of the world, is a TED Senior Fellow, and loves computer games.
Kim Newall
Kim Newall, is a multidisciplinary creative practitioner. He is an NZ leader in using creative technology in grass-roots settings and has nearly 40 years of experience mediating between analogue and digital practice. Kim's work includes immersive real-time performances and interactive and generative installations. He has expertise working between creative coding, hacking, augmented reality, Arduino, projection mapping, IoT, 3D animation and modelling, pen and ink drawing and painting. He also regularly works as a professional VJ at large festivals around Aotearoa. Kim has a Master of Creative Technologies and has taught on creative technology and digital art degrees in NZ. He is currently a Lead Creative Technologist at AwhiWorld
Hanne Peeraer
Hanne Peeraer is an artist and interdisciplinarian investigating intersections of (self-)perception, cognition, and the natural world.
Her practice delves into physiological optics and light’s interaction with the body, investigating the connection between form, matter, and self. Through intuition-led explorations in physical and life sciences, she seeks to engage instinctive responses, using magic, light, and play to reveal complex themes.
Katrien Kolenberg
Katrien Kolenberg's work lies in the interstices of artistic expression and scientific exploration. After obtaining her PhD in astrophysics at the KU Leuven, she did research at the University of Vienna and at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. She currently is Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Antwerp and the Free University of Brussels (VUB), as well as STE(A)M coordinator at the University of Leuven (KU Leuven), and an artist. Her research lies in the field of stellar astrophysics, particularly variable stars and asteroseismology. Linked to her research, she also investigates the potential of sonification for scientific data analysis, as well as the benefits of including arts in science education.
daniel vandersmissen
Daniël (in virtual environments Dan Yapungku) is an artist creating installations and performances that relate to various social themes (climate change, migration, dialogue, social behaviour) and events. He was a teacher in and a pedagogical advisor for the part-time art education in Belgium (Flanders)
Daniël created classic artwork (since 1972) as well as artwork in mixed media, installation-art (since 1979), objects and environments in virtual spaces (since 2006).
In 1994, together with volonteers, local people and cultural organization and a lot of friends and artists he organized a conceptual art event (ArtWall-k - KW) during 7 years in the unknown village Schriek (Flanders, region of Antwerp).
The used media, formats and materials in 2D and 3D artwork performance and installations are various find, residual and disposable materials - everyday utensils and products from consumer society - and are brought into public space/contemporary reality or a virtual environment, on request or unsolicited.
Arpi Derm
Arpi is a software systems engineer at Blue Origin, where she has played a pivotal role in the First Human Flight of the New Shepard rocket. Currently, she is channeling her expertise towards the development of Blue Origin's Lunar Lander, contributing to the goal of landing humans on the moon.
With a decade-long career in software engineering, Arpi brings a multidisciplinary approach to her work. She holds a degree in Astronomical and Planetary Sciences and has accumulated experience in various domains including electronics, hardware, avionics systems, and artificial intelligence.
She is also a big advocate for long-term thinking. She is driven by a single mission: to contribute tirelessly to extending the lifespan of human civilization. Her work is guided by the belief that through sustained efforts, our civilization can indeed find answers to some of the most perplexing questions that the cosmos poses.
Fattana Mirzada
Fattana Mirzada is a neuropsychologist, social psychologist, and criminologist. As a interdisciplinary researcher she has been working with former detainees, organizations preventing violent radical extremism, and children and adults with rare neurogenetic disorders. Currently, she is pursuing a PhD on the topic of acculturation, doing experimental work on the dynamics of emotions and value systems in intercultural interactions. She also has a passion for fashion design and bioart.
Pieter Steyaert
Pieter Steyaert is an artist and transdisciplinary researcher who explores collaborations within artistic and scientific communities. His work particularly focuses on the context of astrophysics and exoplanets. Pieter is one of the co-founders of SEADS and has worked on a wide range of Biomodd, Seeker and Ēngines of Ēternity projects in Europe, the USA and SE Asia. He leads the development of tools and platforms that support the global SEADS community.
Pieter is fascinated by the possibilities, ethics, and shortcomings of the techno-realm. He shares and explores insights as an educator and researcher. His interests include artificial life, data-driven experience design, and art-science interactions. Pieter conducts research at CHAMELEON, an exoplanet research group which is affiliated with both the University of Antwerp and the University of Copenhagen. His research aims to use artistic methodologies to advance scientific ideation and research.
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Amy Holt
Dr Amy Holt is a bioscientist and artist who holds a Ph.D. in molecular immunology and has over a decade of experience in the field of immunology and microbiome research, where she worked on the development of live biotherapeutics for the treatment of autoimmune diseases and cancers. She is a graduate of the International Space University's Master of Space Studies program, and she has worked for the last year at a company as part of a team designing an astronaut training program for a governmental organisation. Her expertise in the fields of both biology and space sciences have allowed her to develop a keen interest in the effects the space environment has on biological processes and how these can either be mitigated or potentially leveraged, in the development of new disruptive technologies. She is also interested in the use of biomaterials, with an emphasis on sustainability and their implementation in closed-loop, zero-waste systems that are essential for supporting human life in space.
Dr Holt is cultivating a practice in the arts that uniquely builds on her science background. She is a member of the SEADS coordination team and also serves as the collective's community organizer. This role allows her to explore the advantages of transdisciplinary approaches within collaborative artistic ventures. Her creative interests lie in exploring the intricate interplay between the natural world, technology, and themes related to identity and transhumanism. She is passionate about further exploring the benefits that transdisciplinary approaches can yield when applied within collaborative ventures.
Sven Kiefer
Sven Kiefer is a PhD student passionate about revealing the enigma of exoplanets. His academic journey began with observing these far-off worlds, but he has since shifted his focus to hands-on work with computer models to comprehend cloud formation in planetary atmospheres. He harbors a deep curiosity about how these clouds shape the weather and chemical makeup of exoplanets. Outside the confines of the lab, he delights in creatively sharing the marvels of space. His significant contributions to 'Exomoon Theater,' a project aimed at making the science of astronomy both engaging and accessible, cannot be overlooked. For Sven, it's all about demystifying the cosmos, making it feel closer to home, and inspiring curiosity in all.
Giusy Checola
Giusy is a PhD candidate in Aesthetics, Sciences and Technologies of Arts, University Paris 8, in cotutelle with the Doctorate in Humanistic Intercultural Studies, University of Bergamo, where she is studying art-led place-making as an integrated research field and applied theory. She analyses the relationships between art, geoaesthetics as geopolitics, collective memory and thinking, pushing on the conceptual and methodological boundaries across the disciplines to understand the transformative potential of the art project and the deepeness of its social, cultural and political impact.
Rob Figueroa Jr.
Bobby is a technologist, teacher, and researcher who works in the area of Educational Technology and Information Systems. He is currently working on research projects involving virtual reality in learning contexts. He is a PhD Candidate at the International Christian University in Japan and Assistant Professor at the University of the Philippines Open University. He also does consulting work as a Learning Management Systems project leader. As one of the newer members, Bobby joined a SEADS project in the Philippines and hosted a small collaborative project sponsored by JICUF in Japan.
Franchesca Casauay
Franchesca is a cultural worker with an interdisciplinary research & arts practice, often oscillating between creative and curatorial roles. As an artist, she works mostly with new media & performance; as producer, she leads and provides curatorial support for local & international initiatives. In various capacities, she has participated in festivals and art projects in the Philippines and across Asia, Europe, UK, and Australia, most recently as guest curator for public programs at the 22nd Biennale of Sydney: NIRIN. Franchesca holds a degree in sociology and a postgraduate diploma in innovation & creative enterprise, and was a fellow of the Courants du Monde program on contemporary digital art practices in France. Although she loves working in the arts, she likewise nurtures a deep & lifelong affinity for all things science, having grown up in a household of scientists. A Biomodd-LBA2 volunteer in 2009, Franchesca is currently helping develop projects for SEADS Philippines for 2020-2021.
Maggie Buxton
Maggie Buxton is a transdisciplinary practitioner, producer and curator. Her practice actively engages with the spirit and spirits of place and opens portals to parallel universes and alternative realities. Maggie has nearly 30 years of working in NZ and globally to support projects in the arts, environmental, social and political spheres. This includes working with ecovillages in West Africa and Latin America; social enterprises and spiritual communities in Scotland; and significant political and corporate institutions across Europe. Her most recent projects have focussed on indigenous cultural centres and capacity-building initiatives near her home in Te Tai Tokerau/Northland, New Zealand.
Her creative works are usually site-specific, and designed to activate spaces and places in grass-roots settings and heterotopic locations. Her collaborative studio AwhiWorld has run pop-up cross-disciplinary innovation labs in empty CBD retail outlets, created town wide augmented reality installations and opened portals to alternative realities in elementary schools, indigenous cultural centres, historic sites, derelict buildings and rest homes. Maggie has a cross-disciplinary PhD (focussing on augmented reality, tricksters and the spirit of place), an MSc in Organisational Development and Consulting (Sheffield Business School) and a BA in Politics and Education. She loves poetry, pickling, photography, politics and propagation. But does not do these simultaneously – yet.
Zeynep Birshel
Zeynep studied English Literature and philology at Istanbul University and holds a masters degree in Communications from California State University. She has fifteen years of professional experience in working with scientists, academic entrepreneurs, start-ups and mid-size companies in commercial development of early stage technologies and designing for sustainable innovation.
Currently Zeynep works as a researcher and co-lead of art science program at Waag Future Lab. Her passion and area of work focus on designing models and interfaces for integrating art into industry and science which she implements primarily though EU S+T+ARTS schemes. These projects allow large scale experimentations on diverse approaches to collaboration.
She is also working on her PhD research at Erasmus University, focusing on collaborations between art, science and technology, investigating how a shared social ecology for collaboration across diverse epistemic cultures can be conceptualised. In her research, she asks what we can learn from individual and collective experiences of artists, technologists and scientists when co-habiting a space for situating science and technology in societally and culturally relevant contexts. Her research builds on theories and practices of transdisciplinarity, arts based research, responsible innovation and ASTS. Zeynep also gives guest lectures at Erasmus University, is an active member of a number of research groups and is one of the co-authors of Creative Producers Manifesto published during Ars Electronica 2021.
Ana Margarida Esteves
Ana Margarida Esteves is a Research Fellow at the Center for International Studies of the University Institute of Lisbon, ISCTE-IUL and Guest Assistant Professor of the Department of Political Economy of the same institution. She has a Ph.D. in Sociology from Brown University (Providence, RI, USA). Her research and teaching focuses on sustainability transitions and regenerative development, including issues of social justice, inclusion and democratic participation, synergies between nature, culture and technology and the role of critical pedagogy and the arts in these fields. She collaborates with ECOLISE- European Network for Community-led Initiatives on Climate Change and Sustainability (https://www.ecolise.eu). She is a co-founder and member of the International Editorial Committee of the journal "Interface: A journal for and about social movements" (www.interfacejournal.net). She also co-founded the New Orleans Solidarity Economy Network and "Academia Cidadã" (The Citizenship Academy), a civil rights and urban activism collective in Lisbon, Portugal.
Tom Van Laere
Tom Van Laere is an accountant, photographer, cyclist and avid traveler. He has been exploring many different corners of the world, and has been to places such Panama, Costa Rica, Senegal, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Vietnam. He joined SEAD from its very early stages, and has been working on art-science projects such as Biomodd. He also takes care of the accounting of SEAD. He enjoys to be out in the open, and loves reading fiction and nonfiction focusing on ethically and psychologically-oriented topics.
Lucky Vengua
Lucky is an illustrator, art director, and graphic designer for more than a decade now working with local and international companies by directly creating or consulting. He is currently finishing his studies at the University of the Philippines Open University under the BAMS (Bachelor of Arts in Multimedia Studies) program, and working towards getting his Adobe Creative Educator level 2 and 3 certifications. As a person with a disability (visual) he is interested mainly in how the arts and sciences can help people like him especially in the field of art.
Victor Steemans
Victor is a graphic designer working and living in the beautiful city of Ghent, Belgium. He has been fascinated since childhood by science fiction stories, biology, the human condition, artistic practices and all things involving future thinking. He focuses on clear communication mixed up with conceptual design.
Mary Pedicini
Mary Pedicini is an American artist/sculptor based in London. Her practice encompasses writing, object-making, curation, sound and video. Her work is grounded in research and storytelling, and the objects that she makes - a 3D-printed tap, a metal mirror, a wax salamander - often reframe old tales, or prompt new ones. Borrowing elements from mythology and science fiction, she tries to imagine non-human ways of thinking and being, to broaden the scope of what we can envision.
Pedicini received her BA in 2019 from Dartmouth College, where she studied Art and dabbled in Ecology, and her MA in 2022 from the Royal College of Art, where she studied Sculpture. Her work has been shown in group exhibitions in the US, the UK, and China.
Nassim Versbraegen
Nassim Versbraegen has studied Computer Science (M.Sc.) at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. He is currently enrolled in a PhD at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, where his research is centered around the genetic origins of rare diseases.
Ulrike Kuchner
Ulrike Kuchner is an astrophysicist, artist, curator and creative producer publishing both in astronomy and in the inter- and transdisciplinary context of ArtScience. She (simultaneously) studied Astrophysics at the University of Vienna, as well as Fine Arts/Paintings at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna, where she was born and raised. Today, after Masters and Ph.D. degrees have taken her to Australia, Chile, the US and Germany, she is a postdoctoral researcher in astronomy at the University of Nottingham, UK, as well as a visual artist. In her research into Astronomy, she studies how mass is assembled in the Universe and how galaxies form and evolve over their lifetime. To do this, she bridge simulations (specifically, cosmological hydrodynamical simulations) with observations of world-class telescopes. As an artist and interdisciplinary researcher, she operate where art, culture, and science intersect, using both backgrounds to find or reject interdisciplinary answers to overarching questions. Her art often deals with the themes of humanity and imperfections in data, something we tend to strip away from science. Ulrike also joins the creative process of other art-scientists and science-artists as curator and mentor to integrate different approaches and knowledge systems, challenging the frontiers between the two cultures without imposing a hierarchy.