Koert Vermeulen

Start of career

Inspired by the modernity and creativity of his native city, Koert started his career in 1989, when he founded his first professional lighting & sound supply company. He started to conceive the lighting for nightclubs, concerts and fashion shows of Antwerp, he also discovered the world of corporate events.

Entertainment lighting design

After founding ACT Lighting Design in 1995, Koert started to expand his work to stage plays, urban operas, “sound & light” shows, fashion shows, such as “Décrocher la Lune”, in cooperation with artistic director Luc Petit. In 1999, Koert met Franco Dragone, and illuminates several projects for him, such as the prestigious Le Rêve, a show launched in April 2005 at the Wynn Las Vegas Hotel & Casino.

Koert also illuminates the corporate shows of Hermès, Coca-Cola, the National Bank of Belgium, Microsoft, Sun Microsystems, Ernst&Young, Siemens, Samsonite, Saatchi and Mercedes, and collaborates with artistic director Dirk Decloedt, and event agencies such as Any Performance, KCom, D-Side, DDMC and Guava. In 2011, Koert conceived the lightning design of Metinvest corporate show in Ukraine, which was directed by Luc Petit CREATION and produced by K-Events agency.

For 15 years, he has also ensured the visual design of I Love Techno in Ghent, the biggest indoor techno festival in Belgium, with 35.000 people attending each year.

Among many concert and live events lighting designers, Koert was chosen to conceive the light show of the concert in honour of the government of Albert II – King of Belgium, as well as to assure lighting and video projection of the opening ceremony of the Belgian presidency of the European Union in 2010. On these two projects, he collaborated with Frank Anthierens. “Je m’voyais déjà”, a musical based on songs of Charles Aznavour, which lighting video and content were also designed by Koert. The musical stayed eight months in Paris, before touring in France, Belgium, Switzerland and Canada in 2009.

Never ceasing to work for live theatre and spectacles, he also illuminates small contemporary forms such as “L’homme assis dans le couloir”, a play from Marguerite Duras, directed by Razerka Ben Sadia-Lavant at the Théâtre National de Chaillot in Paris. For over five years, he has collaborated with in-SENSO, a dance company specialised in vertical & contemporary dance.

Koert has started to collaborate with Marcos Vinals Bassols, who became artistic director and set designer for ACT lighting design, in 2010. Together, they designed the entire set, lighting, content and video animation of several projects such as, 2010 and 2011 editions of 'HALA' Layali Febrayer Music and Poetry festival in Kuwait, the concert “One phone One pass” in Brussels and “Cine Callao” in Madrid etc.

Architectural lighting design

Since 1998, he has expanded his work towards architecture, with projects such as exhibitions, museums, heritage sites, shopping malls, urban spaces, city master plans, office centers and other outdoor projects, while keeping his specific stage approach. His collaboration with Bruno Demeester on these projects, led in 2004, to the creation of ACT architectural lighting design. Since then, the ACT lighting design agency, with its nine lighting designers based in Brussels and Paris, provides its expertise on international projects such as the church of St. Mary's in Brussels, the commercial centers De Klanderij, Optimum and Sanko Park, the master plan for La Defense, Paris’ financial district, projects for Center Parcs.

Exhibitions and museums projects include: “Le droit de rêver” (The right to dream), on the occasion of the 25th commemoration of Jacques Brel’s death, directed by Stan Colders, and “Magazine” for the National library in Hague. With SIEN, a museum design agency, Koert collaborates on several exhibition projects, like “Suikermuseum” in Tienen and “Locutorium”, in Leuven. He designed the architectural, scenographic and exterior lighting schemes for the prestigious Ghent City Museum, and the lighting and video of themed attractions for Walt Disney Studio, Parc Asterix, Futuroscope and Park Tivoli.

Light art installations

After winning the European competition of Lighting Festival “Fêtes des Lumières” in Lyon in 2006, Koert developed a new expression of contemporary Light Art installations. He designed the “sound and light” spectacles for the 2007 and 2009 Winter Festivities in Brussels. In 2008, he is the invited artist for “SolStis”, the first edition of Brussels own light festival, and also for “Arbres et Lumières” in Geneva and Luxembourg.

In collaboration with Odeaubois, Vermeulen expand his work towards artistic light sculptures. “OVO”, is a multi-sensory art object, to which a dimension of a luminous event is added, provided by plays of light and visual effects of water and acoustic animations. This lighting sculpture was presented for the first time during the 2010 Festival of Lights in Lyon before travelling all over the world.

“Tree rings” - Christmas Illumination of Champs-Elysees in Paris (2011-2014)

In 2009, the “Comité Champs-Elysées” launched an international competition for the new design of the Christmas illuminations. Out of over 27 entries, ACT Lighting Design was declared award winner in June 2010, with its light art installation “Tree Rings”(2011-2014). The project was headed up by principal designer Koert Vermeulen and artistic director Marcos Viñals Bassols. They approached the Avenue as a stage play, combining innovation with a strong visual identity. The main idea was to obtain a “new aesthetic that was not related to the traditional image of Christmas," and to create a distinctive and long lasting experience for the public. The project aimed at breaking with the past, not only through an original design, but also with a specific technical approach that allowed a durable and sustainable solution.

Creative vision of “Tree Rings”

The Tree Rings was installed on 200 trees of the Avenue of the Champs-Elysées (2.4 kilometers) in Paris. Each tree is encircle by three rings of different diameters (between 3,12m et 3,84 m) made of 6 programmable LED RGB (Red Green Blue) strips, which are placed all around the tree to illuminate it at 360° (in total 1.2 million LED lights) without touching it. The lighting schemes add drama, movement and color to the natural organic form of the tree. The rings are supported at three points by three curved metal rods, the longest section measuring 6 meters. A concrete base supports the three metal rods.

The entire scheme is programmable to create vastly different effects. Precise shifts in color and tempo can be created to focus on one tree or to create a sequence or group effect, with over 80,000 000 possible combinations of effects per tree. The installation is scalable, from a lighting effect on individual tree to the orchestration of a light show involving every tree along the entire avenue. Conceptually "the ring, a sign of union and completeness, becomes a symbol of unity between man and nature". ACT Lighting Design's inspiration comes from "respecting the tree as a living being", and so the scheme is shaped by a need to ensure that the trees are not damaged in any way by the dramatic lighting intervention.

Illuminations compensated by solar energy production

Tree Rings is the most energy-efficient and eco-conscious installation that the Champs Elysees has seen so far, with significant reduction on energy consumption compared to previous years (31 000 Kwh in 2011, which represents 65% of the 2010 energy consumption). A partnership company, Soitec, installed 30 CPV (concentrated PhotoVoltaic) systems in Themis solar power plant, located in Targassonne in the Pyrénées-Orientales department. The entire consumption of energy utilized by the illuminations is being off-set with the solar energy (average of 40 days), which is put back into the French national grid (ERDF).

ACT Lighting Design's innovative approach used the latest LED technology, combined with "a artistic aesthetic and simplicity", and Tree Rings will grace Paris's avenue during the festive season until 2014.

Lighting design for opening and closing ceremonies of Youth Olympic Games in Singapore (2010)

In May 2009, Koert Vermeulen with ACT Lighting Design won the selection procedure of the SYOGOC (Singapore Youth Olympic Games Opening Ceremony Committee). Since June that year Vermeulen started working on the lighting design of his first Olympic ceremonies. From mid June 2010 the construction and rehearsals began and resulted in the spectacular opening ceremony on the 14th of August with the live audience of 27.000 and a worldwide live broadcast that reached an estimated 2 billion people.

Vermeulen approached the design with both the spectacle and the location in mind working with different layering systems. The Organization Committee wanted to highlight the skyline background of Singapore making it different from the Olympic Games, usually held in a stadium. The whole show was split into six elements – the welcome segment, the origins segment, the segment with the dragons, the segment with fire, the protocol moments with the flags coming in and the Olympic flame coming in. For both the opening and closing ceremonies music was an important element, and theatrical lighting of the opening had to be applied to the pop music of the closing ceremony.

Location of SYOG's opening and closing ceremonies

Marina Bay, the heart of modern Singapore, became the captivating setting for this opening ceremony of the Youth Olympic Games. The center was a floating platform with a width of 120 meters and a depth of 67 meters. In front of it, the main stage (220m x 30m) was constructed. The set consisted of a ring of containers, a reference to Singapore being the biggest harbor in South East Asia. In front of the floating platform a 5000 square meters lake was created. The reflections upon the 80 tons of mirror like water surface provided an extra visual effect. In the center a 32 meters high ‘lighthouse’ was added which also became the cauldron for the Olympic flame. All this stood against the skyline, which was implemented in the scenography by the addition of lighting effects, sky tracers and fireworks on the buildings.

Lectures and speeches

Vermeulen is regularly invited to share his thoughts and expertise, by giving lectures and speeches at conferences. A guest professor from 2004 to 2008 at the prestigious Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp, teaching a course on “Lighting Design”, Koert is also a member of The Professional Lighting Designers' Association (PLDA), the International Association of Lighting Designers (IALD) and the Themed Entertainment Association (TEA). He is a speaker at the 2011 Professional Lighting Design Convention (PLDC) in Madrid [1], lighting design’s industry most respected and prestigious gathering.