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Student Showcase Archive

Ronnie Deelen

Info

  • Ronnie Deelen
  • Area

    School of Communication

    Role

    Visiting Lecturer

  • Ronnie Deelen is a versatile artist and designer who works with image, sound and technology.  Ronnie's work explores synthesis aiming to create fictional sound landscapes. His work as a solo illustrator and animator focusses on contemporary character design inspired by nature and biology. Founder of a monthly event called White Noise showcasing sound experiments by students at the Royal College of Art.

    ronnieism.com
    bleepsworld.uk
  • Biography

  • Born 1979 in the Dutch countryside where he started drawing as soon as he could pick up a pencil and never stopped, Ronnie developed an interest in sound at an early age.  Inspired by eighties synths, he taught himself to compose on a commodore Amiga. These first experiments with sound were the foundation of a long search to find the ideal workflow to produce and perform audio experiments. 

    Ronnie’s practice is eclectic, he chances tools depending on the direction he wants to go. Has a bachelor of design in animation received at the Willem de Kooning academy in Rotterdam, Netherlands. During these studies he developed an interest in character design, illustration and sound design. His interest in technology moved him towards an avant-garde approach to express his ideas and designs. 

    Ronnie received an MA degree with distinction in Graphic arts at the Katowice Art Academy in Poland, graduating with a multimedia performance and a dissertation about Synesthesia. Ronnie explored the relation between audio and visual in his MA degree with a multimedia performance consisting of a self build instrument with realtime control of both audio and video that was presented at ARS Electronica in Linz. In the years that followed, Ronnie continued researching this relation and produced several projects that explore this interesting field.

    In the following years, Ronnie focused on similar fields in his practice. Animated music videos, performances, drawing and exhibitions. During this time, he was part of two musical projects that progressed from 8bit music compositions towards analog synthesis experiments. His interest in synthesis started to become a major part in his practice and today he works with a modular synth to do his sound design, compositions and live performances.

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  • Practice

  • Nature is Ronnie's main inspiration, he loves hiking in wilderness and uses this time to come up with new ideas,  to recharge, and to draw and make field recordings. Particularly in drawing, where he focuses on character design he takes nature and biology as a starting point. In his nature inspired work he tries to forget about all set rules to come up with new and unsuspected creatures, and researching how these characters can be classified in biology. In current animations, Ronnie combines these drawing with compositions created on a modular synth. He prefers simplicity and always looks for the purest way to communicate his thoughts.  

    Outside of his own practice, Ronnie works as freelance animator and illustrator. He has worked on a wide range of projects with clients like Elton John, U2, Nike, BBC, Jaguar and Channel 4.

    Since 2015, Ronnie has been a tutor at the Royal College of Art in Information Experience Design in the Sound Design pathway. He runs workshops focussing on modular synthesis, electronics, sound design, audiovisual interaction and physical computing. He also organises a monthly event showcasing sound experiments by students. 

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  • Publications, exhibitions and other outcomes


  • Awards and Grants

  • VSB fonds Netherlands, talents program grant.

Selected work