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: cum laude
    2nd bachelor: cum laude
    3rd bachelor: cum laude
  • 2000: started a graphic design masters at the Sint Lucas School of Arts, Antwerp (BE)
  • 2003: internship at Vision&Factory, Brussels
  • 2004: graduated at the Sint Lucas School of Arts in graphic design
    1st bachelor: cum laude
    2nd bachelor: cum laude
    1st master: magna cum laude
    2nd master: magna cum laude
  • 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 Sint Lucas School of Arts, Antwerp (BE)
  • 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 (BE)
  • 2001: one of the leading artists for the stage decoration of the Hove Live festival (BE)
  • 2004-2006, NodeBox: research project on computer graphics at Sint Lucas Antwerp
  • 2007, Fortis Tree: evolving visualization algorithm for Fortis Bank
  • 2007-2009, Gravital: an IWT-project on computational creativity (IWT/60121, EUR 267612)
  • 2008-2009, Creatures: a VAF-project on emergent games (Creatures, 06/EX/096/06-295, EUR 22560)
  • 2008-2009, Dark Matter: an IBBT-project on immersive data visualization
  • 2011: Valence: wireless EEG headset game, with IMEC and Ludivine Lechat

Exhibitions

  • 2005: exhibition at the MuHKA, Antwerp (BE), at Champ d’Action’s Time Canvas exposition
  • 2006: exhibition at the Beursschouwburg, Brussels (BE) of the Evolution project
  • 2007: exhibition at AB+, Turin (IT) of the Evolution project
  • 2008: exhibition at Dag van het Artistiek Onderzoek, Ghent (BE) of Superfolia
  • 2009: exhibition at WWW, Ghent (BE) of Superfolia and Creature
  • 2010: permanent exhibition at IMEC, Leuven (BE) of Nanophysical (with Ludivine Lechat)
  • 2010: exhibition at the Art Museum, Lahti (FI) of Self-Replication (with Ludivine Lechat)
  • 2010: exhibition at E-Culture Fair 2010, Dortmund (DE) of NodeBox and City In A Bottle
  • 2010: exhibition at Design Nature 201o, Liege (BE) of Wallflower (with Ludivine Lechat)
  • 2010: exhibition at Creativity World Biennale, Oklahoma (USA) (with Ludivine Lechat & Jo Cols)
  • 2010: exhibition at Royal Flemish Academy, Brussels, Evolution + Nanopyhiscal (with Ludivine Lechat)
  • 2011: exhibition at Creativity World Forum 2011 of Valence (with IMEC and Ludivine Lechat)
  • 2011: exhibition at Tender Buttons, Ghent (BE) of Nanophysical (with Ludivine Lechat)

Books, publications & articles

Publications

  • De Smedt T., Lechat L., Daelemans W. (2011). Generative art inspired by nature, in NodeBox. In: Applications of Evolutionary Computation, Part II, LCNS 6625, pp. 264-272, Springer.
  • De Smedt T., De Bleser F., Nijs L. (2010). NodeBox 2. In: Proceedings of the 16th International Symposium on Electronic Art (ISEA 2010), pp. 350-352. ISBN 978-3-86895-103-5
  • De Smedt T., Van Asch V., Daelemans W. (2010). Memory-based shallow parser for Python. CLiPS Technical Report Series, CTRS-002, ISSN 2033-3544 [pdf]

Magazine publications

  • 2006, NodeBox: article in Counterform in Motion (RU)
  • 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

Magazines

  • 2004, NodeBox: "Lahti Automation Workshop"
  • 2005, NodeBox: "Flowerewolf"
  • 2005, NodeBox: "Computers and the Zen of Programming Art book"
  • 2007, NodeBox/Gravital: "Growing Things"
  • 2010: "Nanophysical"

Online articles 

  • 2005, computational creativity (link)
  • 2005, computational creativity (link)
  • 2007, artificial Life (link)
  • 2008, computational creativity (link)
  • 2011, politics + sentiment analysis (link)

Press coverage

  • 2005, "Sint-Lucas ontwerpt revolutionaire robot-designer", De Standaard (link)
  • 2011, "Een mobiele hersenmonitor", De Standaard (link)
  • 2011, "IMEC stelt innovatieve mobiele hersenmonitor voor", De Morgen (link)
  • 2011, political study using sentiment analysis, De Morgen (link)
  • 2011, political study using sentiment analysis, De Standaard (link)
  • 2011, political study using sentiment analysis, Le Soir (link)
  • 2o11, political study using sentiment analysis, La Libre Belgique (link)

Online reviews

Lectures and workshops

Lectures

  • 2004: presentation of NodeBox at Dorkbot, Ghent (BE)
  • 2004: speaker at the AtypI 2004 conference in Prague (CZ) on automation in graphic design.
  • 2005: speaker at the AtypI 2005 conference in Helsinki (FI) on artificial intelligence in graphic design
  • 2006: presentation of NodeBox at ELIA (European League of the Institutes of Arts), Ghent (BE)
  • 2006: presentation of NodeBox at Dorkbot, Ghent (BE)
  • 2007: presentation of NodeBox and Gravital at Integrated2007, Antwerp (BE)
  • 2007: presentation of NodeBox and Gravital at C.Stem 2007, Turin (IT)
  • 2008: open debate with Jan Verpooten ("Is artistic expression uniquely human?")
  • 2008: invited talk at the AI & Creativity symposium, Radboud Universiteit, Nijmegen (NL)
  • 2008: invited talk at The Agile Mind symposium, Flemish Academic Centre for Science and the Arts (BE)
  • 2009: presentation of NodeBox 2 at Integrated2009, Antwerp (BE)
  • 2009: speaker at CLIF (Computational Linguistics in Flanders), Antwerp (BE)
  • 2010: presentation of City In A Bottle at Gamezone 2010, Antwerp (BE)
  • 2010: presentation of NodeBox 2 at Libre Graphics Meeting 2010, Brussels (BE)
  • 2010: speaker at ISEA 2010 (International Symposium on Electronic Art), Dortmund (DE)
  • 2010: invited talk at Koninklijke Academie voor Schone Kunsten Antwerpen (BE)
  • 2010: panel discussion at Creativity World Forum, Oklahoma (USA)
  • 2011: invited talk at Seminart symposium, Z33, Hasselt (BE)
  • 2011: presentation of NodeBox at EvoMusArt 2011, Turin (IT)
  • 2011: invited talk at Fabelier, Université Paris Descartes (FR) on Pattern.
  • 2011: talk on sentiment analysis in Pattern, ATILA (Antwerp-Tilburg Inductive Language Acquisition).

Workshops (as assistant teacher)

  • 2003: new media workshop, Institute of Art, Design & Technology (IE)
  • 2004: DrawBot workshop, Lahti Institute of Design (FI)
  • 2005: NodeBox workshop, Lahti Institute of Design (FI)
  • 2007: NodeBox workshop, Lahti Institute of Design (FI)
  • 2008: NodeBox workshop, Universiy of Art and Design Helsinki (FI)
  • 2009: NodeBox workshop, Lahti Institute of Design (FI)
  • 2010: NodeBox workshop, Lahti Institute of Design (FI)

Workshops (as teacher)

  • 2011: data visualization + Pattern, Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Antwerp (BE), w/ Thomas Crombez.
  • 2011: data visualization + Pattern, Better Nouveau, Torino (IT), w/ NodeBox & DensityDesign.

Classes (as assistant teacher)

  • 2011: computational models of language understanding, Universiteit Antwerpen, with Walter Daelemans.

Languages

  • Dutch: native language
  • English: excellent
  • French: fair
  • German: fair

Computer knowledge

  • Operating systems: Windows, Unix, Mac OS
  • Networking: servers, LAN networking and management
  • Databases: MySQL, MS Access, SQLite, CouchDB
  • Programming languages: Cobol, Pascal, C++, Java, Python, Ruby, PyObjC, Cocoa, C, GLSL
  • Web: Rails, PHP, JavaScript, DHTML, XHTML, XML, CSS, W3C standards, CMS, Ajax, Drupal, HTML5
  • Print: Certified PDF
  • Software: MS Office, Gimp, Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Acrobat, Pitstop, Fontlab, Director, Dreamweaver, Processing, NodeBox
  • Paradigms: OOP, Java design patterns, agile development, Web 2.0, AI for games, physics for games, image compositing, genetic algorithms, natural language processing, machine learning, sockets.

Personal

  • Member of SKEPP (Belgian Skeptics)