About

Jeroen van Loon is a Dutch artist researching and visualising current digital culture through the lens of ephemerality and permanence.

His work is exhibited internationally at venues such as Centre Pompidou, Transmediale, Aksioma, Centraal Museum, HMKV | Dortmunder U, IMPAKT festival, Verbeke Foundation, SPRING performing arts festival, Nemo Biennale, V2_, Cairotronica, KIKK Festival and MU Artspace. 

He received the K.F. Hein Kunststipendium, the European Youth Award, was nominated for the New Technological Art Award (NTAA) 2022 and is part of the Brave New World Speaking Agency as a speaker on art and technology.

His work was shown at TEDx, We Make Money Not Art, The Creators Project, Designboom, Digicult, Volkskrant and NRC-Handelsblad.

Van Loon (b. 1985 in ’s Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands, lives and works in Utrecht, NL) received a bachelor in Digital Media Design and a European Media Master of Arts from the HKU University of the Arts Utrecht.

On the Art of Jeroen van Loon
By curator Michel van Dartel

The hybrid field of art and technology is seeing a radical change in the approaches taken by its artists. Rather than working from blueprints based on desktop research, emerging artists in this domain increasingly often choose to embed themselves in a technology’s sphere of influence while keeping a relatively open agenda. Working one’s way towards artistic outcomes from an embedded position encourages a new emphasis on the process of development and the bodily experiences it brings about in the artist. Consequently, the significance of any art objects produced along the way is reduced, challenging the art world’s strict conventions regarding what artistic practice, presentation and spectatorship can and cannot be.

The work of the artist Jeroen van Loon is a quintessential example of this emerging approach. He embeds himself in subjects such as the production of identities through social media (Kill Your Darlings, 2012), pre-Internet societies (Life Needs Internet, 2014–present), and the evolving market in human genetic data (Cellout.me, 2016). Van Loon makes a significant contribution to our understanding of and relationship to contemporary digital culture and the new realities produced by technological advancement. This contribution is a necessary and timely one, pulling our attention away from the direct, everyday consequences of technology to cast light on its broader impact and structural effects. In an age in which the short-term benefits of new technologies are generously celebrated in the media, promoted through government innovation policies and highlighted in product campaigns, there is a critical need for the efforts of artists like Van Loon to counter this techno-euphoria with an unbiased exploration of technology’s effects on our lives, climate and culture.

Van Loon’s work has been displayed in solo exhibitions and international group shows and has earned him a European Youth Award and a KF Hein art grant. He regularly gives presentations on his artistic explorations of technology, both in the art world and through institutions that promote innovation, such as TEDx. Van Loon holds a bachelor’s degree in digital media design and a master’s in European media. He is currently based in Utrecht, the Netherlands.

Links

Instagram
Twitter

Exhibitions (selection)

2022 Centre Pompidou, Paris, FR
2022 NTAA award show, Ghent, BE
2021 KIKK FESTIVAL, Namur, BE
2021 Nemo Biennale, Paris, FR
2020 Utrecht Down Under, Utrecht, NL
2020 DEEP FAKE, SUPERCOLLIDER Gallery, Los Angeles, USA
2020 Waterman’s Art Center ‘Data Dating’, London, UK
2020 Museum Morsbroich, ‘Object Love’, Leverkusen, DE

2019 SPRING Performing Arts Festival, Utrecht, NL
2019 HMKV | Dortmunder U ‘Video of the month’, Dortmund, DE
2019 Mirage Festival #7, Lyon, FR
2019 Verbeke Foundation, Kemzeke, BE
2019 Stadstriennale ‘SCREEN IT’, Genk/Hasselt, BE

2018 IMPAKT Festival 2018  – Utrecht, NL
2018 Cellout.me (SOLO) – Aksioma – Institute for Contemporary Art, Ljubljana, Slovenia
2018 Data Dating – Gallery Charlot, Paris, France
2018 Object Love – De Domeinen – Sittard, The Netherlands
2018 Hidden Structures – Oddstream – Arnhem, The Netherlands
2017 Alien Matter – Transmediale, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, DE
2017 Materialising the Internet – MU artspace, Eindhoven, NL
2017 Het Mysterie van de Waarheid – Arti Amicitiae, Amsterdam, NL
2017 International Digital Arts Festival – Darb 1718, Cairo, Egypte
2017 DA Fest 2017 – National Academy of Art (NAA), Sofia, Bulgaria
2016 Central Museum – “Beyond Data” – Solo, Utrecht, NL
2016 STRP SCENE #1 – Eindhoven, NL
2016 V2_ ‘3×3 sessions’ – Rotterdam, NL
2016 z33: Design My Privacy – Hasselt, BE
2016 MOTI: Design My Privacy – Breda, NL
2015 CYBERFEST 9 – Sofa CO, St. Petersburg, RU, New York, USA
2015 KadS[Art along the Schinkel] – Amsterdam, NL
2015-2016 Museum of Communication – Den Haag, NL
2015 Tech Art Expo – Berlin, DE
2014 New Horizons Festival – Rotterdam, NL
2014 GOGBOT Festival – Enschede, NL
2014 Oddstream Festival – Nijmegen, NL
2014 Code Matter(s) #7 – Amsterdam, NL
2014 Quartier Putain | Top Notch Coffee – Amsterdam, NL
2014 Museum of Communication – Den Haag, NL
2014 Kunstenlab Privacy: kijken en bekeken worden – Deventer, NL
2013 Dutch Design Week – Eindhoven, NL
2013 Patchlab – Krakow, PL
2013 Kultura2.0 – Warsaw, PL
2013 Melkweg – Amsterdam, NL
2013 UtrechtDownUnder – Utrecht, NL
2013 BrightDay – Amsterdam, NL
2013 Away From Keyboard (SOLO) –Kunstenlab, Deventer, NL