Ellie Walton

Koert Vermeulen

With an eclectic portfolio of stunning projects around the world, from Guinness World Record-breaking installations to Olympic opening ceremonies, Koert Vermeulen has established himself as a great lighting designer. As his company, ACTLD, celebrates its 30th anniversary this year, arc editor Matt Waring talks with Vermeulen about his origin story and his lighting vision.

In Rotterdam, Netherlands, in October 2019, at the final PLDC event’s closing Gala Dinner and Awards Ceremony, proceedings opened with an immersive, dazzling light show. So impressive was this audiovisual performance that the moment it finished, the event organisers called to run it back, much to the delight of the guests in attendance.

This was my first experience of the work of Belgian lighting maestro Koert Vermeulen, and his studio, ACTLD (formerly ACT Lighting Design, now ACT Live Design). As Vermeulen celebrates the 30th anniversary of the studio this year, on reflection, this short, three-minute performance was just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the incredible, richly diverse works of experiential, entertainment, and architectural lighting design that the studio has made its name crafting.

Over the years, Vermeulen has created projects of all scopes and sizes around the world, from Olympic Games opening ceremonies, to Guinness World Record-breaking art installations, and vast pavilions at World Expos.

With roots in both entertainment and architectural lighting, Vermeulen and ACTLD have built a broad portfolio of projects where, working with forward-thinking clients, they have used technology, multimedia, and narration to design, develop, and deliver dynamic experiences worldwide. As a studio, ACTLD mixes what it calls “Entertecture” and “Architainment” into “Experience Design”.

Speaking to arc magazine as he begins celebrations for ACTLD’s 30th birthday, Vermeulen takes us back to his first fascinations with light, dating back to his childhood in Antwerp, Belgium.

“When I was 11, 12-years-old, two of my older neighbours across the street from me – who were 15 at the time, had what they called a disco bar, with a DJ set up, two turntables, mixing desks, loudspeakers, etc, and they used to play shows for student houses, the Scouts, things like that. They did it to hang out with girls, so while they were doing that, they needed someone to put on the records. As I was younger, they brought me in to help – I had to stand on a beer crate to reach the desk at first, but they introduced me to this world.

“They had a couple of lights already, but over the years, as I started to get a bit of money, I bought some more lighting equipment, and a sound to light modulator, and would start putting on light shows while they were working on the music.

“But when I was 14, one of them got his girlfriend pregnant, the other one was doing bad at school, so they left all of the equipment with me. So, all of a sudden, I had all this sound equipment, my own lighting equipment, and that was the basis of my first, unofficial, business. It was more like a rental place than a design studio, but we did fashion shows, concerts, town fairs, whatever we could find.”

Not long after this though, while Vermeulen was still a teenager, he had an epiphany, which steered him from his DIY, grassroots approach into something more tangibly connected to lighting design.

“We were doing a very small setup for a concert of promo tours in Antwerp, and an English band came in, their tour manager saw my equipment and said ‘what is this? It is like amateur hour’.

“He took all of my disco equipment, put it on stage, and made what I would call a lighting design with the equipment that I was used to seeing just flicker. I was so interested in that part that from then on, putting on records was less and less my thing, and I was doing more of the lighting.”

And so, after Vermeulen finished high school, as well as running his own company, he went to architectural school in Brussels, specifically because it offered a 40-hour lighting course – the only lighting course that he could find at the time.

However, the tenacity and drive of young entrepreneurship meant that, in 1989, Vermeulen cut his studies short and focused full time on his now official company, dubbed Antwerp Stage Productions.

Now under the more official guise of ASP, Vermeulen and his team picked up where they left off, albeit at a much bigger level, working on fashion shows for the higher profile houses, and helping out on larger concerts as they came through town.

“They would need stagehands, roadies, and technicians, and we were able to provide that,” he says.

“I would always try to make friends with the lighting people so that they would give me the good jobs. I was working on one of the Pink Floyd shows, and they saw that I was intelligent and knew what I was doing, so they kept me around, and asked if I wanted to see the concert with them at the front of house, where I could see how they did the show.”

It was through jobs like this, attending various trade shows, and building a library of books and magazines on architecture, light, art, and entertainment (a library that now reaches around 2,300 books) that Vermeulen began to fully understand lighting design in a more formal sense, having previously been self-taught, save for his brief stint at university.

However, after five successful years with ASP, where Vermeulen and his team rented out stagehands and technicians for the likes of Michael Jackson, U2, Genesis, and Tina Turner, he wanted to focus more fully on lighting design as a profession; as such, at the end of 1994, he left ASP, and established Art-Concept-Technology – ACT.

The early incantation of the studio saw Vermeulen continue to work on larger and larger fashion shows, but his big break, he recalls, came on a project called Tour de Cites – a tour of various historical sites across Belgium, where he had to devise a lighting scheme for each location virtually on the spot, as the truck of equipment was being unloaded.

“It could have been anything from a mountain to a fort, to a cathedral, and over two summers we did 50 sites. That was a learning curve where I had to, very quickly, decide what would work from a limited amount of equipment. I would direct where to place fixtures as they were coming out of the truck, and we would have an evening to programme it and create the mood.

“People saw what we were doing and what we were illuminating, and we were asked if we could do something permanent – this is how we got into architectural lighting. Entertainment lighting was always the basis for us, and architectural lighting came after that.”

As Vermeulen looked to move more into the architectural lighting sector, he called on compatriot and fellow lighting designer Bruno Demeester to join him at ACTLD, after the two connected as the only Belgian members of the IALD at the time. Working together, the two were able to fuse Vermeulen’s artistic prowess with Demeester’s technical nous.

“In the beginning, Bruno would take care of the architectural projects, and I was just there for the big ideas. We were asked to come to a site, and within 10 minutes, my design was ready, and I started to explain it to the client, because my background was to always be very quick, you didn’t have time to do designs and think about the process, so I was always very immediate in getting a visual idea in what I wanted. But Bruno was really great at the technical side that I was slightly less interested in.

“Of course, over the years, I learned. Then we got a very big client who was doing shopping centres, and they were interested in made to measure stuff, video, LED tiles, so that was a nice combination of the artistic and technical aspects.”

Vermeulen’s vision, and ability to almost immediately craft a lighting concept in his mind is something that he feels is his “USP”, but he says that he has, over time, learned to slow this process down, and allow his team instead to speak first and come up with their own ideas.

“Some of my clients really love that I can look at something, and in a meeting, I can come up with ideas, which sometimes stick and become the solution, sometimes they don’t. But I think they like the fact that you show you’re interested, that you’re enthusiastic, and that even without a contract, you are willing to share your ideas.

“What I did learn over the years is to keep my mouth shut. When we brainstorm for a project, I learned that the moment I started to explain my ideas, most of the team would nod and say ‘yes, let’s do that’.

“Instead, I told them that I’ve got my ideas, but I’m going to them first, I’ll give them some time, and then we’ll reconvene and discuss.”

As the company continued to grow, Vermeulen explains that around half of the designers on staff were focused on the architectural side, with the other half looking more at entertainment and experiential lighting projects. Although, he says that there have been occasions where the lines became more blurred.

“I was always able to jump in when the projects needed the pazazz and the colour, or the new data,” he says.

“If you look at most of our architectural lighting, there is a trace of entertainment in there. But it has evolved – in the beginning, before video really came in, a lot of people in retail and leisure wanted coloured lighting, so we did a lot of that. As we’ve progressed, the lighting is a bit whiter than we were doing 20 years ago, but it is still dynamic, so it has that entertainment feel to it.

“I don’t think we have ever done a shopping centre without DMX – perhaps that is the cutoff. DALI is much more suited to the architectural field, so maybe our entertainment influence is bringing DMX into the architectural lighting control world.”

However, whatever field Vermeulen and ACTLD is working across, from architectural, to entertainment, experiential and art installations, the notion of storytelling always remains. This, as he explained during his presentation at Light + Intelligent Building Middle East in Dubai this January, can vary from explicit storytelling to more implicit and experiential forms.

“I read a book once that talked about the comprehension of storytelling, and not just in the traditional sense that you would find in a book or a film, and so I brought that into the methodology of our working process here,” he explains. “In most architectural projects or art installations, the story is mostly an existential, experiential kind of story. Sometimes it can be a little bit explicit, for instance, we did a big project for the Zenit Arena in St Petersburg, Russia, where we used storytelling to portray the experience of a father and son going to a football match.

“But when you are an implicit storyteller, what I love about doing technical shows that run three, four times a night, it is a 10-15 minute show on a cathedral with video mapping, etc, and there are no actors. There are no people there for you to have a human connection with, but through implicit storytelling, I see people after the show, and they have inserted their own protagonist into the world you have created. It’s so open to interpretation. Everybody sees something different, and that’s cool. You make that emotional connection with people in that way. If you can bring that, and keep that in your design phases, then I think you will have a successful project.”

Vermeulen is no stranger to successful projects, having curated a vast and diverse portfolio of amazing works across a variety of sectors. Although a few landmark projects are displayed on posters in his studio – OVO, one of his first art installations that has gone on to tour the world, the Tree of Life from Expo 2015, and Light Moves, a one-night-only show created to celebrate his own 50th birthday – he says that to pick a favourite is akin to asking a father to name his favourite child.

“It’s not that you don’t have favourites, but they change over time,” he says. “Almost every five years, I have a change, a big event that changes my perception, or the direction that we are going. But I would definitely say that the Singapore Youth Olympics in 2010, even more so than the Beijing Winter Olympics in 2022, would be a highlight, because it was our first one.

“The Expo 2015 installation was probably my favourite project until 2022; OVO was our very first art installation, which I put together with Star in Motion [the Guinness World Record installation created for Noor Riyadh 2021 and displayed on the city’s Kingdom Tower].

“I would also add Puy du Fou, because it is my favourite client from over the years. We did 10 or 11 shows with Puy du Fou, and all of them are amazing.”

Regardless of which project is a favourite, Vermeulen hopes that in each work, be it a performance, installation, or work of architectural lighting, the lighting can create an emotional response in the viewer.

“It is the best high that you can have,” he says. “I have never taken heroin, but I imagine that it is better than heroin. When you do a light and sound show, and you see people come to watch it, and at the end, they applaud as if you are on stage, that’s a rush.

“Every time we did a Puy du Fou show, I saw 14,000 people stand up and give almost 10 minutes of applause. I know that there are 1,500 people on stage, but it gives me a rush to know that without the lighting, nobody would see them, they would be in the dark.

“I know that there can be a huge emotional response to lighting. I learned very early on, when I was light jockeying in one of the best clubs in Antwerp, I said to the DJ ‘put on the best three songs of the week, and I will work against you, and do bad lighting’. He played the songs, and some people went to the dancefloor, but I said to him half an hour later ‘do the same thing, and I will work with you’ and it really ramped up. So, in that club, in the late 80s, I learned of the power of lighting.

“One of the most important graphical lighting designers of his time, Richard Pilbrow, said to me at a conference, that it is not where you put the light, it is where you don’t put the light. It’s as important. It’s also direction, it’s mood, that’s the emotion that you can bring.

“So, I think that is one of the things that I always try to convey or to obtain, is that people have that emotion when you bring something in front of their eyes.”

Over the course of our conversation, Vermeulen mentions several names that have inspired him in the past – artists and visionaries such as Patrick Woodroffe and Mark Fisher (“he’s the GOAT”). And while there are some artists out there that he would love to collaborate with, he feels he is in a fortunate enough position to be more selective with his clients these days.

“Mark Fisher had the vision, and he was really innovative, which I see now in Es Devlin. She has that same drive for innovation that Mark had. If she were to call me, she wouldn’t have to ask twice. But unless it is Bono, U2, Genesis, etc, I don’t have a wishlist of people I absolutely want to work for. For the most part, I like to work for people who I admire but who are also generally nice and respectful and can work with a team.

“I have had my share of toxic people that I have had to work with. I also now have the luxury of saying no to people that I don’t like – it’s not nice when you’re in a toxic atmosphere, where you feel that you are not adding value, or there’s no synergy.”

When it comes to dream projects though, Vermeulen says that, while ACTLD never had an explicit “mission statement”, he does have a bucket list of projects he hopes to complete – a list that is nearly fully checked off.

“Six or seven years ago, we tried to write a mission statement, but we had real difficulty with it. Essentially, when I started out, I thought that I had a cool logo and a nice name, and that was more than good enough. We never thought about anything else. I think those kinds of phrases didn’t even exist when I started out.

“However, at some point, I made up my mind that, in my life, I wanted to do a big show in Vegas, I wanted to do an Olympic Ceremony, a show on Broadway or the West End, and a big, global tour. Those were the four goals that I had. My mission statement, if you could call it that, was therefore all about the projects.”

As he looks back on his portfolio of projects, Vermeulen tells me that this wish list is nearly complete. “Alongside the two Olympic ceremonies, we did the Vegas show with Le Rêve – I think I was the youngest ever lighting designer doing a $100 million show in Vegas at that time.

“I also worked on a Broadway show in New York, but unfortunately, during that process, the composer died, and the show never saw the light of day. So, the only thing that is still on my list is the big, international touring concert.

“However, we are currently working on some very interesting stuff that we think will create a new paradigm shift for the concert world and live entertainment. It’s a show that will hopefully be at three festivals next year, so if that comes off then I can finally do the fourth element of what I dreamed of 30 years ago.”

As Vermeulen looks to the future, he is also keen to embrace emerging technology to further enhance his design work. While he feels that the likes of drones are “passé”, he is intrigued by the ongoing advancements in AI.

“I think that AI will be a very important tool that will be used. I already use AI in a lot of our processes here, and while I don’t feel that within my generation I will be replaced by AI, I do think that some of our juniors – or at least what they do in the process – will be replaced by AI. But I think that this is a good thing, as those juniors will be free to do more important stuff, more creative work. I am a big believer that curation is becoming the most important part of the creative process.

“When it comes to what we can do, our mind is so limited; if we are creating scenes, we can create maybe three options, and then effectively our mind is blocked by the things that we have already created. But through AI, we can easily create 10 scenes – they may not make a lot of sense, but it can continue to make permutations in which our mind is blocked.

“Our role will therefore develop so that we can curate what AI gives us, and find the solution that works the best, so curation will be a continuing factor of our creative process.”

As for upcoming projects, aside from the touring festival show, Vermeulen is sworn to secrecy on a number of works that will, on completion, be very high profile. Central to ACTLD’s work going forward, will be research and development, through the studio’s in-house Innovation Lab. Here, Vermeulen and his team will look to spearhead research in three key areas – storytelling, design processes, and systems design – with the goal of continuing to further enrich the experiences that it delivers.

In the meantime, Vermeulen is currently mulling over how best to celebrate ACTLD’s 30th birthday.

“I don’t yet know what we will do with it,” he says. “We had a big celebration for the 20th anniversary – the Museum of Contemporary Arts in Brussels gave us a whole floor, and we held a kind of expo, with media displays, Puy du Fou gave us costumes, and we had about 400 visitors from around the world for a party.

“For the 25th, I made three art installations; ACT originally stood for Art, Concept, Technology, so we did an installation on Art, one on Concept, and one on Technology. We also had a big party with around 380 people there.

“So, for the 30th, the only thing I said was that I wanted to push it to the summer, as the previous events were in January. So, this summer I am going to do something. I don’t know what yet, but it is coming.”

If Vermeulen’s staggering portfolio is anything to go by, whatever does come, it will be something special. Watch this space.

www.actld.com

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by Ellie Walton