Tom De Smedt | Curriculum vitae

Tom De Smedt
Born 27/09/1978 in Antwerp, Belgium
E-mail: tom-at-organisms.be
http://nodebox.net

Education

• 1990: secondary school, classical orientation (Latin)

• 1992: secondary school, modern orientation (language and science)

• 1996: started a programming masters at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel
  1st bachelor: failed

• 1997: warehouseman at Nollekens NV, paints and cleaning products

• 1997: warehouseman at GB Unic NV, distribution centre

• 1997: intern at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel accountancy department

• 1997: started a programming bachelor at the Hogeschool Antwerpen Campus Zuid

• 2000: internship at Real Software Belgium, worked on the Remax ERP application

• 2000: graduated at the Hogeschool Antwerpen Campus Zuid in programming
  1st bachelor: distinction
  2nd bachelor: distinction
  3rd bachelor: distinction

• 2000: started a graphic design masters at the St. Lucas School of Arts, Antwerp, Belgium

• 2003: internship at Vision&Factory, Brussels

• 2004: graduated at the St. Lucas School of Arts, Antwerp, Belgium in graphic design
  1st bachelor: distinction
  2nd bachelor: distinction
  1st master: great distinction
  2nd master: great distinction
• 2008: started PhD. at the Universiteit Antwerpen, department of Computer Linguistics.
  

Employment 

2004-2008: researcher, Experimental Media Group, Karel de Grote-Hogeschool Antwerpen
2oo8-present: PhD student, Computational Psycholinguistics group, Universiteit Antwerpen

• 2004: worked as a freelance graphic designer for Samsonite

• 2004: worked as a freelance graphic designer for Champ d’Action
• 2004: co-founder of Burocrazy, a freelance graphic design studio.
  

• 2004: co-founder of the Experimental Media Group at the St. Lucas School of Arts, Antwerp, Belgium

• 2004: release of NodeBox, a graphic design tool developed in collaboration with Frederik De Bleser

• 2005: spokesman for the youth division of the Groen! left-wing party in the Antwerp suburbs

• 2006: wrote a funding proposal for IWT (Institute for the Promotion of Innovation by Science and Technology in Flanders) / employed as a researcher in an IWT/TETRA-project (Gravital), a collaboration of St. Lucas School of Arts Antwerp, the department of Computer Linguistics at the Universiteit Antwerpen and 13 Belgian companies.
• 2007: started a PhD on computational creativity (Universiteit Antwerpen)
• 2008: wrote a funding proposal for IOF (Industrial Research Fund) / received PhD scholarship.
• 2008: wrote a funding proposal for European Commission FP7 (Intelligent Content and Semantics)
  outcome: failed
  

Projects

• 1997: lead developer for a pen & paper role-playing game
• 2000: one of the leading artists for the stage decoration of the Hove Live festival, Belgium
• 2001: one of the leading artists for the stage decoration of the Hove Live festival, Belgium
• 2004-2006, NodeBox: research project on computer graphics at St. Lucas Antwerp
• 2007, Fortis Tree: evolving visualization algorithm for Fortis Bank.
  
• 2007-2009, Gravital: an IWT-project on Artificial Creativity (IWT/60121, EUR 267612)
• 2008-2009, Creatures: a VAF-project on gaming (Creatures, 06/EX/096/06-295, EUR 22560)
• 2008-2009, Dark Matter: an IBBT-project on immersive data visualization

Exhibitions

• 2005: exhibition at the MuHKA, Antwerp, Belgium, at Champ d’Action’s Time Canvas exposition, http://old.champdaction.be/cda.php?p=Blotter

• 2006: exhibition at the Beursschouwburg, Brussels, Belgium of the Evolution project,
  http://nodebox.net/code/index.php/Evolution
• 2007: exhibition at AB+, Turin, Italy of the Evolution project.
• 2008: exhibition at Dag van het Artistiek Onderzoek, Ghent, Belgium of Superfolia.
• 2009: exhibition at WWW, Ghent, Belgium of Superfolia and Creature.
• 2010: permanent exhibition at IMEC, Leuven, Belgium of Nanophysical (with Ludivine Lechat).
• 2010: exhibition at the Art Museum, Lahti, Finland of Self-Replication (with Ludivine Lechat).

Books, magazine publications & online articles

Booklets

• 2004, NodeBox: Lahti Automation Workshop
• 2005, NodeBox: Flowerewolf
• 2005, NodeBox: Computers and the Zen of Programming Art book
• 2007, NodeBox/Gravital: Growing Things

Magazine publications

• 2005, NodeBox: interview in De Standaard and on Radio2
• 2006, NodeBox: article in Counterform in Motion, a Russian magazine on typography

• 2006, NodeBox: article in ADD-magazine on the Champdaction logo

• 2006, Computational creativity: article in Add!ct-magazine #26
• 2007, Computational Creativity: article in Add!ct-magazine #27 on gaming
• 2007, Creatures: article in Add!ct-magazine #28 on nanotechnology
• 2007, NodeBox/Gravital: article in ADD-magazine #6
• 2009, MBSP: article in The Bulletin on semantics and data mining, presented at TEDxBrussels
• 2010: Dendrite artwork in Flanders Today, issue May 19, 2o1o
  

Online articles 

• 2005, Computational creativity: http://research.nodebox.net/Emergence

• 2005, Computational creativity: http://organisms.be/index.php/On_artificial_creativity

• 2005, Computational creativity: http://organisms.be/index.php/Learning_learning

• 2005, Blotter: http://old.champdaction.be/cda.php?p=Blotter

• 2007, Artificial Life: http://organisms.be/index.php/On_artificial_life_and_genetics
• 2008, Perception Comparisons: http://nodebox.net/code/index.php/Perception_comparisons
  

Lectures and workshops

Lectures

• 2004: presentation of NodeBox at Dorkbot, Ghent
• 2004: speaker at the AtypI 2004 conference in Prague on automation in graphic design.
• 2005: speaker at the AtypI 2005 conference in Helsinki on artificial intelligence in graphic design
• 2006: presentation of NodeBox at ELIA (European League of the Institutes of Arts), Ghent, Belgium
• 2006: presentation of NodeBox at Dorkbot, Ghent, Belgium
• 2007: presentation of NodeBox and Gravital at Integrated2007, Antwerp, Belgium
• 2007: presentation of NodeBox and Gravital at C.Stem 2007, Turin, Italy
• 2008: open debate with Jan Verpooten ("Is artistic expression uniquely human?")
• 2008: invited talk at the AI & Creativity symposium (Radboud Universiteit, Nijmegen, Netherlands)
• 2008: invited talk at The Agile Mind symposium (Flemish Academic Centre for Science and the Arts)
• 2009: presentation of NodeBox 2 at Integrated2009, Antwerp, Belgium
• 2009: speaker at CLIF (Computational Linguistics in Flanders), Antwerp, Belgiun
• 2010: presentation of City In A Bottle at Gamezone 2010, Antwerp, Belgium
• 2010: presentation of NodeBox 2 at Libre Graphics Meeting 2010, Brussels, Belgium
  

Workshops (as assistant teacher)

• 2003: participant in a typography workshop at the Institute of Art, Design & Technology, Ireland
• 2004: DrawBot workshop at the Lahti Institute of Design, Finland
• 2005: NodeBox workshop at the Lahti Institute of Design, Finland
• 2007: NodeBox workshop at the Lahti Institute of Design, Finland
• 2008: NodeBox workshop at the Universiy of Art and Design Helsinki, Finland
• 2009: NodeBox workshop at the Lahti Institute of Design, Finland
• 2010: NodeBox workshop at the Lahti Institute of Design, Finland

Some reviews

• 2005, NodeBox: http://www.generatorx.no/20050921/NodeBox/

• 2005, NodeBox: http://www.ipb.pt/~vquelhas/research/project_links/view.php?cat=3

• 2005, NodeBox: http://www.atypi.org/news_tool/news_rss_html?newsid=331
  

• 2005, NodeBox: http://www.ganyet.com/index.php/weblog/NodeBox-let-the-bot-design/

• 2005, Flowerewolf: http://www.generatorx.no/20050922/oekandana/

• 2006, NodeBox: http://www.visualcomplexity.com/vc/project.cfm?id=365
• 2006, NodeBox: http://mediadescri.be/2006/06/09/some-visualisation-tools/
• 2007, NodeBox: http://macateeny.blogspot.com/2007/11/graphic-visualisation-made-easy-with.html
  
• 2007, Colors library: http://hackety.org/2007/12/04/thoseImpressiveNodeBoxColors.html
  

Languages

• Dutch: native language

• English: excellent

• French: fair

• German: fair

Computer knowledge

• Operating systems: Windows, Unix and Mac operating systems

• Networking: servers, LAN networking and management

• Databases: MYSQL, MS Access, SQLite, CouchDB

• Programming languages: Cobol, Pascal, C++, Java, Python, Ruby, PyObjC, Cocoa, C

• Web practices: Rails, PHP, Javascript, DHTML, XHTML, XML, CSS, W3C standards, CMS, Ajax

• Print practices: Certified PDF

• Software applications: Office, Gimp, Photoshop, Illustrator, Indesign, Acrobat, Pitstop, Fontlab, Director, Dreamweaver, Processing, NodeBox

• Practices and experience: OOP, Java design patterns, extreme programming, templating, Web 2.0, Artificial Intelligence for game development, compositing, PyOpenGL, NLP, complex systems
  

Personal

• Member of SKEPP (Belgian Skeptics)