Tijmen Schep

Maker: Giorgos Gripeos

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Advisor digital culture, creative industry and public participation

Tijmen Schep

Tijmen Schep advises on the creative industries, digital culture and public participation. He helps governments and organisations develop concepts and accessible projects that combine culture and technology. He currently works on the Leadership in Culture and Communia projects and is co-developing the public program of Spring House, the new co-working space in Amsterdam that is now home to Kennisland.

Tijmen (pronounced like Simon, but with a T) has made it his goal to help people who are put-off by technology to develop a deeper understanding, and perhaps even a love for it. For Tijmen that is really important: more and more we expect technology to solve our societal problems, but if we are honest most of us really don’t understand enough about technology to critically asses the proposed solutions. We need to become more knowledgeable in order to separate the hypes and fears that surround technology from true solutions and insights. By critically exploring technology we can safeguard the fundamental liberties and freedoms (such as privacy) that we need to be human. It is one of the reasons Tijmen likes to bring ‘makers’ in on his projects: it helps them stay playful and grounded in reality at the same time.

In 2008 Tijmen graduated from Utrecht University. In his thesis he explored Mark Weiser’s Ubiquitous Computing ideology++Ubiquitous Computing ideologyHe had a good point: even your bank-card has a chip in it now. Read his legendary article.. We now know these ideas as “the internet of things”: smart objects that can act on their own and communicate between themselves in order to ease our lives. Many designers aim to make technology as invisible as possible++InvisibleA well-known project was Dangling String., but Tijmen pointed out the limits of that idea. Making technology invisible, striving for black boxes, makes it more difficult than necessary to understand technology and the data that is racing around this ecology.

Tijmen takes pride in calling himself a nerd. He built different types of web systems++SubmarineTijmen did an internship at Submarine where he worked on their online TV channel: Submarine Channel. , taught at the Willem de Koning Academy and the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences. He is co-founder of the Utrecht-based medialab SETUP++SETUPSETUP’s mission is to help grow a critical digital citizenry that can give shape to our digital culture. where he is the creative lead. He also worked at the Virtual Platform, a semi-government foundation that supported digital culture in the Netherlands which later became part of Het Nieuwe Instituut, where he worked as an expert on digital culture. You could say Tijmen has developed into someone who enjoys building bridges between digital practise and policy.

Tijmen is a member of the Amsterdam Art Council as part of the commission on Art, Photography, New Media and Architecture. In his spare time he likes working with wood, swimming, walking or sailing. He sometimes releases his inner-nerd to develop small experiments in digital culture.