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)

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

Is there life elsewhere in the Universe? How do we detect exoplanets? How do we hope to find life on exoplanets light-years away? What is “TRAPPIST-1”? What do exoplanets tell us about the famous “Fermi’s Paradox”?

The Copernican Revolution taught us that our Earth, far from being the center of the Universe, is only one among the many planets orbiting the Sun, which is itself similar in every respect to the stars lining the celestial vault. Later, astronomy revealed that there are hundreds of billions of stars in the Milky Way, our galaxy, and that there are hundreds of billions of galaxies in our expanding Universe. Faced with such immensity, it is very tempting to hypothesize the existence of other inhabited planets out there, and even of other advanced civilizations. Long confined to speculations, the existence of exoplanets, i.e. planets in orbit around other stars than the Sun, became a proven fact at the end of last century. Since then, more than 4000 exoplanets have been detected at an ever-accelerating pace. A few dozens of these are “potentially habitable”, i.e. they could be rocky worlds harboring oceans of water on their surface, like our Earth. Imagining complex forms of life on some of these planets is but a small step away, one that is happily crossed by science-fiction. But our imagination will eventually be replaced by real scientific measurements, as upcoming giant telescopes will soon be able to probe the atmospheric compositions of some of these extrasolar worlds, and, who knows, to reveal chemical traces of life out there. If so, our view of the Cosmos will change forever…

This concert was performed and recorded on October 24, 2021, Flagey Brussels

Event organized by Science & Cocktails in collaboration with the International Solvay Institutes.

Performers:
Composer: Benjamin Glorieux
Cellists: Benjamin Glorieux, Bryggen String Orchestra
Vincent Caers: electronics
Klaas Verpoest: live video

The End of Space and Time concert in Flagey was the closing event for the Strings2019 conference.
Together with Cellist Benjamin Glorieux I created a performance especially for the occasion. Inspired by ‘strings’ in all its varieties.

Cellist Benjamin Glorieux and visual artist Klaas Verpoest have created a performance especially for the occasion. Inspired by ‘strings’ in all its varieties, they enthusiastically agreed.

Insisting on finding as many strings as possible they promptly invited 2 pianists, Anthony Romaniuk and Rembrandt Frerichs-with-his-trio – that makes more or less 464 strings – and 5 fellow cellists, that’s 24 strings. Electronica-wizzard Jo Thielemans won’t bring any string, but he brings other stuff!

The output will be multifaceted like a diamond’s surface, even if the orgulous music of JS Bach will always be nearby… But it will all sound absolutely new, as if covered with stardust from those more or less 500 strings and thanks to the creativity of the players and the extraterrestrial acoustics of Studio 4!

13.08.2019: Studio 4 – Flagey, Brussels

Performers:
Cellists: Benjamin Glorieux, Liesemarie Beelaerts, Seraphine Stragier, Pieter Matthynssens, Pieter-Jan De Smet, Harmen Goossens
Anthony Romaniuk: piano
Jo Thielemans: electronics
The Rembrandt Frerichs trio: Piano, Double base, drums
Klaas Verpoest: live video

Based on a novella by Philippe Claudel Het kleine meisje van meneer Linh is a moving story about a man who has to flee his country with the little he has left.
Koen de Sutter does the show as a monologue. Because De Sutter is alone on stage and performs all of the roles – the narrator, Mr Linh and Mr Bark – it gains a special flavour, atmosphere and significance. It becomes a show about the power of the imagination and of portrayal. De Sutter tells the story with all of the means available to him: dramatic action, words, images, music, sound, projections….

Credits
director: Guy Cassiers
text: Philippe Claudel
with:
– Koen de Sutter (Dutch spoken version)
– Jérome Kircher (French spoken version)
– Jules Werner (English spoken version)
– Lluis Homar (Spanish spoken version)

video design: Klaas Verpoest
sound design: Diederik de Cock
kostuumadvies: Tim Van Steenbergen
production: Toneelhuis

30.09.18: Het Kleine meisje van Mijnheer Linh (premiere) | Het Toneelhuis – Antwerpen
15.03.18: La petite fille de monsieur Linh (premiere) | Le Phénix – Valenciennes (FR)
07.12.18: La néta del Senyor Linh (premiere) | Temporada Alta Festival – Girona (ES)
03.05.19: Monsieur Linh and his child (premiere) | Les Théâtres de la ville de Luxembourg – Luxembourg (LU)
On tour in Belgium, The Netherlands, France, Spain, Luxembourg,… (visit Toneelhuis for all data)

“Very beautiful production, because the essence of the story is about a search for contact that transcends inadequate communication through language. Cassiers works with a ‘moving typography’ to give the very poetic but also concise and purified text a kind of deeper emotion.”– Evelyne Coussens in Klara , 2 October 2017

Sound receives a body. Movement creates traces. Form becomes sound. A game of feedback arises, dissolving the contours between instruments, players and material.

Peter Jacquemyn (double bass, voice), Jan Pillaert (tuba, voice), Klaas Verpoest (visuals), Geraldo Si (dance), Vincent Caers (live electronics, percussion) and Sofia Kakouri (dance) have been performing together in different configurations. Fundamental to their collaboration is the improvisational approach, the equality of art-forms and the transfer of each performer’s attitude into an unique interdisciplinary experience, adopting each others strategy.

By definition, music and movement are temporary, mobile and repeatable. Plastic arts are unique, static and made for eternity. The collective brings unique, not repeatable music and exercise combined and confronted with plastic arts and this with a pronounced temporary performance character. The action leads to the idea, the interaction shows the way.

28.10.2017: Impact Session – Vooruit, Gent
26.01.2018: sound//vision at International Film Festival Rotterdam – WORM, Rotterdam
14.10.18: Lovt, Brussels
20.10.18: Open Studio – BatimentA, Leuven
28.11.18: Show Research #7 – Terrarium, Brussels

Performers:
Peter Jacquemyn: Double Base | Voice
Jan Pillaert: bastuba | Voice
Vincent Caers: live electronics
Klaas Verpoest: live video
Geraldo Si: dance
Lazara Rosell Albear & Sofia Kakouri: dance | pocket trumpet

Pictures by Marilyn Desmet

Karlheinz Stockhausen was a radical, an extremely important but also controversial innovator. He is also one of the most important musical minds of the past century. His electronic music inspired several generations of musicians, even outside the realm of so-called art music. He broke rules and traversed boundaries. His music was extremely complex, but in all the abstraction it is also sensual and engaging.

14.01.16: Cosmic Pulses – De Bijloke, Gent
15.06.18: Porto Franko Festival – Ivano-Frankvivsk (UKR)
23.11.18: Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival – Huddersfield (UK)
07.12.18: John Doe Gallery – New York (US)

Performers:
Thomas R. Moore: trombone
Klaas Verpoest: video
Patrick Delges, Centre Henri Pousseur: electronics

In a production of:
Muziekcentrum De Bijloke Gent | Centre Henri Pousseur

Signale zur Invasion | Karlheinz Stockhausen from Klaas Verpoest on Vimeo.

09.08.2018: MaFestival – Concertgebouw, Brugge
18.04.2018: Opera 21 – De Bijloke, Gent
10.03.2018: Klara Festival – Flagey, Brussel
07.10.2017: Festival 20/21 – 30cc, Leuven

Performers:
Lore Binon: Mélisande
Pierre-Yves Pruvot: Golaud
Reinoud Van Mechelen: Pelléas
Tijl Faveyts: Arkel
Angélique Noldus: Généviève
Camille Bauer: Yniold
Inge Spinette & Jan Michiels: piano (DUO YIN-YANG)
Klaas verpoest & Jan Duerinck: Kinetic Typography
Dimitri Stuyven: Light Design
Picture: Guy Buys

In Crippled Symmetry Feldman builds on repetitive motifs (patterns), knotting and weaving his sounds the way Anatolian nomads make their carpets. It is from those carpets that Feldman borrowed the concept of imperfect or ‘crippled’ symmetry. Listening to Feldman’s work is a strange but overwhelming experience.

Performed by: Het Collectief
Thomas Dieltjens, piano & celesta | Toon Fret, flute | Tom De Cock, percussion
Klaas Verpoest, Motion Design

14.04.2016: Crippled Symmetry, Miryzaal – Gent
20.04.2016: Crippled Symmetry, CC Maasmechelen – Maasmechelen

08.11.2014: Crippled Symmetry, SLOW (36H) / Concertgebouw – Brugge

Helemaal desintegreren mocht de tijd tijdens het prachtige Crippled Symmetry van de Amerikaanse componist Morton Feldman, gebracht door Het Collectief met visuals van Klaas Verpoest. Breekbare motieven dreven anderhalf uur lang als eilandjes door de stilte en braken met elk lineair concept van tijd.
De Standaard

De Eerste Wereldoorlog wordt ook wel ‘the Literary War’ genoemd, omdat er zoveel gedichten geschreven werden over deze wereldbrand. De meeste nog tijdens het conflict zelf. Uit die overdonderde poëtische erfenis puurde Tom Lanoye jaren geleden al twee bloemlezingen van radicaal bewerkte verzen: traditionele in ‘Niemands Land’, meer experimentele in ‘Overkant’. Die beide bundels zijn heruitgebracht in één band.

Concept en uitvoering:
Tom Lanoye
Klaas Verpoest

08.10.2015: Leidse schouwburg – Leiden [NL]
16.10.2015: Cc Palenthe – Overpelt
20.04.2016: Cc Hasselt – Hasselt
12.05.2016:’t Schaliken – Herentals
28.05.2016: Het Gasthuis, Aarschot

28.06.2014: De VOORUIT – Gent