Selected – Klaas Verpoest

Weg van Bach

Klaas — Sat, 23 Dec 2023 08:53:28 +0000

In december 2022, cellist Benjamin Glorieux went on a week-long journey from Arnstadt to Lübeck. With his cello on his back, Glorieux followed the same route that Bach took 300 years ago, in order to hear his great hero Buxtehude play. Bach’s cello suites formed the rhythmic thread during his walks: “As I heard the music sounded in my mind or played live, I collected reflections, ideas and insights that will guide the live performance.”

Initially, I was supposed to join Benjamin on this journey but was unfortunately prevented from going. A month later, we undertook a trip along to the locations that impressed Benjamin the most. I recorded these through 3D scans, with those impressions I went to work and created various worlds that the tour depicts internally and externally. As a viewer, you step along, as it were, to the rippling music.

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685 – 1750) 6 Suites for cello, BWV 1007-1012
Performed by:
Benjamin Glorieux, cello
Klaas Verpoest & Johan Van Mol, video artist
Steven Reymer, Light Design

“Weg van Bach” is a coproduction of Klara Festival and Bozar
11 March 2023, Klara Festival – Bozar, Henry Le Boeuf Hall (B)

WASP-107b

Klaas — Mon, 20 Nov 2023 16:26:02 +0000

Together with my collegue Johan Van Looveren at the Media & Information Design department of LUCA School of Arts, we visualised data collected by a team of European astronomers led by Prof Leen Decin of KU Leuven’s Institute of Astronomy.

Through the James Webb Space Telescope – NASA’s most powerful telescope – the team discovered the presence of water vapour, sulphur dioxide and sand clouds on the exoplanet WASP-107b. Using specialised imaging techniques, Klaas Verpoest and Johan Van Looveren captured this almost indecipherable data (an endless stream of numbers) from a planet never really seen.
The results of this groundbreaking study were published by the leading scientific journal Nature on 15 November 2023. Immediately afterwards, the news found resonance in the national and international press (VRT news, De Standaard, De Morgen, HLN, The Guardian, USA Today, The Independent, Forbes…).

Credits:
Illustration: LUCA School of Arts, Belgium/ Klaas Verpoest (visuals), Johan Van Looveren (typography).
Science: Achrène Dyrek (CEA and Université Paris Cité, France), Michiel Min (SRON, the Netherlands), Leen Decin (KU Leuven, Belgium) / European MIRI EXO GTO team / ESA / NASA

Why Patterns?

Klaas — Fri, 13 Oct 2023 15:12:48 +0000

Why Patterns? (working title) is a minimalist composition by American composer Morton Feldman and is the starting point for this production. In addition to myself, composers David Fennessy and Jean-Luc Fafchamps are each creating a new composition.

My contribution consists of two different components that are inextricably linked. On the one hand, there is the visual component for the live performance ‘TTT plays FFF/FFF by TTT’, performed by Het Collectief. This performance consists of three compositions: Feldman’s ‘Why Patterns?’ and two new pieces composed by David Fennessy and Jean-Luc Fafchamps respectively. On the other hand, there is the ‘Why Patterns? ‘ installation consisting of 4 modules of 3 compact screens each (there are three musicians/instruments), which can be seen as a prelude or visual research to the actual performance.

What if each instrument represents a star and you assume that you can apply seismological, hydrodynamic, spectral,… algorithms to it, what does that say about the patterns in the composition? Possible comparative analyses of the data from these different instruments will hopefully result in beautiful visual textures and patterns that could potentially unlock this data for an audience in a poetic way.

the performance ‘TTT plays FFF/FFF by TTT’ consists of the following compositions:
Why Patterns? (1978) Morton FELDMAN (1926-1987)
Nieuw werk (2025) David FENNESSY (°1976)
For Morton Feldman (2025) Jean-Luc FAFCHAMPS (°1960)

Performed by Het Collectief
Toon Fret, flute
Thomas Dieltjens, piano
Tom De Cock, percussion
Klaas Verpoest, video performance

‘TTT plays FFF/FFF by TTT’ is a coproduction of Kortrijk Festival (B) and New Music Festival Dublin (IRL)
1 April 2025, De Link – Tilburg (NL)
5 or 6 April 2025, New Music Festival Dublin (IRL)
20 May 2025, Tivoli Vredenburg – Utrecht (NL)

The Solitary One

Klaas — Tue, 21 Sep 2021 08:20:05 +0000

There you are, solitary in the middle of a pitch-black hole. How did you get there, and how could you get out? You’re shouting, screaming, signaling to the outside world, but everything seems to return to you like a boomerang. Nothing can escape the horizon, or does it? Is there something or someone out there who might see or hear your experience inside?

‘The Solitary One’ is a performative installation transforming the most extreme and paradoxical object that our universe harbours – a black hole – into an immersive audiovisual experience.

Visual artist Klaas Verpoest, sound artist Vincent Caers and cellist-composer Benjamin Glorieux tend to unite art and science in their individual work. A shared fascination for the inexplicable aspects of a black hole and the concepts of space and time led to a joint venture in which they explore the artistic potential of their combined disciplines for illustrating these themes. Along the way they collaborated with theoretical physicist Stéphane Detournay. Their aim is not to provide a scientific explanation, which remains the scientist’s task, but instead to create an immersive installation offering the audience an opportunity for experiencing cosmological phenomena and the incredible forces driving them.

October 23, 2021 – Februari 27, 2022: ‘Cosmos’ Exhibition – CID Grand Hornu, Hornu [B]
October 23, 2021: Opening performance ‘Cosmos’ Exhibition – CID Grand Hornu, Hornu [B]
February 18, 2022: Closing performance ‘Cosmos’ Exhibition – CID Grand Hornu, Hornu [B]
September 8, 2023 – February 4, 2024: Space is the Place exhibition – MUDAC, Lausanne (CH)
December 7, 2023: Space is the Place performance – MUDAC, Lausanne (CH)

Credits:
Vincent Caers: Sound Artist
Benjamin Glorieux: Cellist/Composer
Stéphane Detournay: Scientific Advisor
Klaas Verpoest: Video artist