Media & Design Academy

Liesbeth Huybrechts (1979) is a Master in Communication Sciences and Master in Cultural Studies at the Catholic University of Leuven (BE). Today she is doing a Phd research in Cultural Studies (Catholic University of Leuven) on the question: "How do artists, through the use of technology, make us aware of our place in space?" At the moment she is researcher and teacher in higher art education at the Media & Design Academy in Genk. She teaches courses on art, culture and technology and on methodologies for design research. Furthermore, Liesbeth is active as editor of the e-culture blog of the Flemish Government, she was involved in the media art exhibition Place@Space in art centre Z33 and she is doing a mapping on the arts, media and technology field in Belgium.

Priscilla Machils (1986) recently graduated cum laude as a Master of Arts in Media Culture at the University of Maastricht (NL). During her internship she was involved in the media art exhibition Place@Space in art centre Z33. Currently, she works at Design Platform Limburg and Platform Limburg Beeldende Kunsten. Furthermore, Priscilla is engaged in a European research project at the Media & Design Academy in Genk. As a recent graduate she still is exploring her professional field, nonetheless photography and blogging are part of her daily reality.

Thomas Laureyssens (1976) is a Master of Arts in Graphic Design at Sint Lukas Brussels (BE). As a designer and media artist, Thomas researches human movements in urban space. The main focus of interest in his work are flow and obstacles. This leads to several observations and visualisations in the shape of videos and installation.
Thomas experiments with interfaces and art games, for which he got a Rhizome commission in 2005. Currently, he is researching topological visualisations in the media-arts field. Since 2006 he is a guest lecturer at the Media & Design Academy in Genk. He is involved in two modules '(public)space' and 'play' and artistic research on visualizing the media arts networks in Flanders. In 2001 he started his own design studio, Toyfoo.

Jon Stam (1984) is the 2008 recipient of the Rene Smeets award and recently graduated cum laude from the Design Academy Eindhoven. Jon is currently coordinating artistic projects for art centre Z33 and engaged in a European research project at the Media & Design Academy in Genk. Check out his  curiosity cabinet.

Expertise center for Digital Media

Philippe Bekaert (1967) is associate professor in computer science and project leader at the Expertise Center for Digital Media of Hasselt University in Diepenbeek, Belgium. He obtained a MS in nuclear physics, in computer science, and a PhD in computer science at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Leuven, Belgium. He has been affiliated with the Computer Graphics AG at the Max-Planck-Institute for Informatics in Saarbruecken, Germany, as a post-doctoral researcher supported with a EU Marie Curie fellowship in 2001-2002. His research interests include global illumination, image and video based rendering, omni-directional and free viewpoint video, high performance graphics on clusters of PC's, and Monte Carlo methods. He is PhD advisor of 12 PhD students in these areas at Hasselt Univerisity. He has co-authored over 60 papers at all major fora in these fields, as well as a book on advanced global illumination, published by A.K.Peters in 2003 and 2006. He is a member of the international program committee of the Eurographics Symposium on Rendering as well as various other conferences in the field of computer graphics, and is a regular reviewer for all major computer graphics conferences and journals including ACM SIGGRAPH. He is leading several RT&D projects with other research centers and companies within the context of the IBBT (institute for broadband technologies) and the EU FP 6 and 7, among others. He initiated and participates in various projects on the intersection of art of technology.

Art centre Z33

Jan Boelen (1967) graduated as Product Designer at the Media and Design Academy in Genk. Afterwards he gained experience working at Dekeyser, Gent, D.W. Plastics, Beverst and as an Product Manager at Kreon. Until 2001, he was Project Leader Design, Anno-’02, Kortrijk and Director of Cepro (Centrum voor Integrale Productontwikkeling, Centre for Integral Product Development) in Waregem. Jan Boelen has also lectured at several academies and colleges, including the Katholieke Hogeschool Limburg in Genk, the Provinciale Hogeschool Limburg in Hasselt
At the moment, he is artistic director at Z33 Hasselt, where he curates exhibition projects concerning contemporary art, design and new media. He also lecturer at the Design Academy Eindhoven in the department ‘Man and wellbeing’ and is a regular guest lecturer at Hogeschool voor Wetenschap en Kunst (Science and Art) – Department Plastic Arts, Sint-Lucas, Gent.
On top of these, he also is the chairman of the commission architecture and design of the Flemish parliament, he resides in the commission of HISK, Antwerp, he’s a founding member of VOBK (United Organisations for the Plastic and Audiovisual Arts) and he advises the Overleg Platform Kunsten van de Associatie van de KULeuven (Consultation Platform Arts of the Association of the Catholic University Leuven).