Scientific Imagination

Scientific Imagination


Cultivating Imagination – Angelo Vermeulen

August 15, 2021

Angelo is a space researcher, biosystems engineer, biologist and artist. In 2009 he co-founded SEADS (Space Ecologies Art and Design), an international transdisciplinary collective of artists, scientists, engineers, and activists. Its goal is to reshape the future through critical inquiry and hands-on experimentation. Biomodd is one of their most well-known art projects and consists of a worldwide series of interactive art installations in which computers coexist with internal living ecosystems. For the last ten years, he has been collaborating with the European Space Agency’s MELiSSA program on biological life support for space. In 2013 he became crew commander of the first NASA-funded HI-SEAS Mars simulation in Hawai'i. Currently, he works at Delft University of Technology, developing bio-inspired concepts for interstellar exploration. He advises several European space companies, and together with the LDE Center for Sustainability he connects space technology and horticulture to foster innovation in global food production. He is also preparing a series of art/science experiments on board of the International Space Station. Vermeulen has been (guest) faculty at universities across Europe, the US, and Southeast Asia. He is a Senior TED Fellow, and was selected in 2017 as one of the Top 5 Tech Pioneers from Belgium by the newspaper De Tijd. His TED Talk about his space-related work has garnered over a million views. In this podcast I go into conversation with Angel about the role of imagination in his profession, about bringing our imagination further and the limitations of imagination when it comes to interstellar travel.