Angelo Vermeulen

About Angelo Vermeulen

Angelo Vermeulen is a true contemporary polymath. He holds a PhD in biology, is active in the fields of space exploration, architecture and design, has a practice as a visual artist, and has a natural talent for community organizing. He is a Senior TED Fellow and is currently completing his second PhD at Delft University of Technology, researching bio-inspired space exploration and interstellar exploration.

Angelo Vermeulen knows no boundaries. Not between people, not between art and science, not between living and non-living matter. For him, it’s all about making connections between biology, technology, and social systems (people, that is). He is now applying that vision to rethink space technology. At Delft University of Technology, where he also teaches, he is conceptualizing the spaceships of the future.

‘What do you do in your daily life? ‘I design spaceships.’

Passion

With a passion for challenging established ideas, Angelo Vermeulen brings together science and art to rethink our present and future in innovative ways. He engages in dialogue with various cultures and domains about how people live, collaborate, and shape the world. He is constantly seeking opportunities to open a global conversation. This grounded passion is woven into everything he does; his art projects, research projects, and lectures. He also consults for companies. Through concrete experiences and testimonies, he takes every audience on a very personal and engaging journey.

Futurist

As a futurist, Angelo is involved in conceptualizing and creating alternative concepts for the future. He also questions the ethics of our thinking about the future and predicts which problems will arise in order to respond to possible solutions that we can conceive from the present. Examples of his futuristic projects include the Geotrauma Lab and his research project E|A|S. He does this not alone, but with the SEADS collective, of which Angelo is a co-founder. SEADS is a transdisciplinary and intercultural collective of artists, scientists, engineers, and activists. SEADS is actively involved in deconstructing dominant paradigms about the future and developing alternative models through a combination of critical research and hands-on experiments.

Community Organizing

Vermeulen sees engaging with the future primarily as a global and collective effort. As a community organizer, he has lived and collaborated with people around the world, including from the Philippines, Indonesia, the USA (New York, Ohio), the UK, Denmark, New Zealand, Taiwan, and Chile.

His background as a scientist and his expertise in community organizing led him to become the commander of NASA’s first HI-SEAS Mars simulation in Hawaii. During this mission, he studied the effects of prolonged isolation on a small crew, which provided strong insights into collaboration and team dynamics. In recent years, he has realized a large number of art and science projects around the world, from Southeast Asia and the USA to even in space.

Transdisciplinary Work

Angelo is a connective thinker and works transdisciplinarily. This means he breaks down walls between different disciplines and brings strengths together. For this, Angelo has developed a specific methodology with a strong focus on co-creation. SEADS is built upon this methodology, and this is reflected in each of the projects. One of SEADS’ most recent projects is engines of eternity, an art project developed with geneticists and engineers that has already been sent to space twice. Another well-known transdisciplinary project is Biomodd, a global series of art installations that build living ecosystems within computers. Angelo Vermeulen will make a personal connection with transdisciplinary work in each of his lectures and presentations, drawing from his own practical experience.