User:Mdd/Marcel Douwe Dekker

Marcel Douwe Dekker (born Delft, 1964) is a Dutch systems engineer and conceptual artist, who participated in the art scene and Dutch Design movement in the 1990s. He is editor at the Dutch and English Wikipedia since 2004.

On his road to become an mechanical engineer and receiving his MA in systems engineering at the TU Delft, he had turned to art and started his career in the 1990s in photography, art, design and art & design promotion. Experimenting the same limitations in the art world as in the theory he took an even deeper dive into an conceptual research and development of a new world view.

Dekker participated in numerous initiatives in sports, art, design, organization, education and Wikipedia from a regional to a national and international level. While his work had been spread over the five continents for more then 25 years, he continues his quest to research and develop new conceptual visions on the society.

Youth and early education
Born in 1964 in Delft, Holland, Dekker was the third child of Dick Dekker (born 1937) and Gre Wiersma (1942-2001). His father is a mechanical engineer, who had studied at the Delft University of Technology. After starting his career at the agriculture equipment manufacturing company Vicon, he made his career in R&D at the steel producer Koninklijke Hoogovens in IJmuiden. The family moved from Delft over Nieuw-Vennep to Heemskerk, where Dekker grew up.

In his early years at primary school he showed some remarkable skills in drawing, and chess, and wrote his first texts about it in the school newspaper. He played chess up to semi-national level, but remained in the shadows of his eldest brother. Beside school, soccer, tennis, chess club, and holidays working in the family agricultural firm, he realized his first graphic design assignment around 1978, a logo and display for the agricultural firm. He started wandering around the village, making bicycle trips over the North Sea Canal to IJmuiden to the oriental world present at the house of his friends grandma.

After entering secondary school in the late seventies he couldn't keep up socially, and started experiencing isolation and disorientation. His parents divorce made this even more tangible. To fill the blanks he started collecting, first car flyers, then singles, and later relations, memories and ideas. By the time he finished school, he had enough to start as disc jockey. He played at some parties at the local tennis club and at student parties in Delft and Amsterdam, which didn't last.

Study of mechanical engineering in Alkmaar
In 1982 Dekker started studying mechanical engineering at the polytechnic University of Applied Sciences in Alkmaar. He had wanted to study architecture, but due to bad career perspective his father had advised against in. Earlier he had dropped drawing and choose economics for similar reason. Ironically, he had received a recommendation for the highest score at the final economics exam. But this was no exact science. Before school started, he traded his moped for a racing bicycle to run 15 miles up and down to Alkmaar the next two years.

Still depressed and isolated, he started to find comfort in reading late 19th century romantic literature. Due to his dyslexia he had hardly read such works for secondary school, or any other works. This was about to change, because he would trade the television for books the next two decades. In the summer holidays he bicycled to Brittany in France with a friend, which he documented with a. The holidays brought a new friend, who was into fashion, graphic design and partying in Amsterdam. Live and studies were too good to be true. He was about to finish his studies at twenty one, and had no idea what to make of his live.

Study of mechanical and systems engineering in Delft
After two year in Alkmaar in 1984 Dekker moved to Delft to continue studying mechanical engineering at the Delft University of Technology. In his second year he still passed all his exams, but almost dropped out. He lost his interest in the technical study and the ordinary study life. He had become a nice flat in Delft South from the start, had been an active volunteer at the student fraternity Sint Jansbrug, successful sporter and coach at the rowing club Proteus-Eretes, and the girl he still dated was admitted at the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague.

Dekker had made up his mind to specialize in systems engineering under professor Jan in 't Veld, which started with a case program once a year. In 1987 he just missed it, and had to wait a whole year. He did have his job at the TU Delft as practicum assistant at materials science. Later that year he became student assistant to the professor in Business Engineering Pierre Malotaux, and a true believer. He started experimenting with planning and systems modelling, first privately, and later in the development of his thesis. In 1990 he spent a year in industry at the Dutch aircraft manufacturer Fokker to finish his study, and received an Engineer's degree in 1991. But that is not the whole story.

Acquaintances, first experiments and determination for the arts
However, while Dekker had expected the study to be more general and widen his scope, he found a scattered mix of technical theory instead. The one good thing was, that the succes had revived his entrepreneurial drive. He designed a special bookcase, started with photography, and writing diary, and moved to a student home in the heart of the old city of Delft. But this wasn't enough. By the end of 1986 he broke almost all ties. He moved to Rotterdam early the next year and found another student job as photographer in the Blijdorp zoo.

In his quest to find new meaning Dekker had joined the Humanistisch Verbond in Rotterdam, and later in 1989 started as volunteer with Amnesty International. While his friendship with Wietske van Leeuwen further introduced him in the passionate world of art, he still couldn't picture his own future in engineering or management. While experiments with systems modelling failed, things went bad. And after his friend was admitted to the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam and left, he lost it. In the art expression he had found his way to connect to the world beyond. Halfway his time with Fokker, he decided to become an artist himself.

Study of visual arts in Rotterdam
After his graduation in 1991 Dekker continued to study visual arts at the Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam academy of Art for one year under Kees Verschuren.

Early career in art and design in Rotterdam
On April 1, 1992 he started his own conceptual art and design company Marcello. To support this development he worked as waiter, as night porter in a homeless shelter, as construction builder to rebuild Hotel New York in Rotterdam, as exhibition builder in the Kunsthal Rotterdam, ending up as chief technology officer in the Kunsthal for a week or so.

In 1994 he received a Dutch Design Award, and started selling design objects internationally and in cooperation with Shiu-Kay Kan world wide for some time. In 1998 he started the company Mdd for global concept development.

In 1995-96 he experimented with multidisciplinary art and design cooperation. And since 2004 he is volunteer editor at the Dutch and English Wikipedia.

Work
Dispite nearly a decade of higher engineering education Dekker was attracted by the passion for art of intimate friends and floated into the world of art instead almost as autodidact. Troubled by his fragmented family ties, relationships continuing to got out of hand and lack of prospect of his own life, in the summer of 1990 he committed to art to start admiring in himself what he had been admiring in others. The next decade he studied to make art and visa versa made art to study gathering more and more skills and peaces of a puzzle that didn't fit. Next another two and a half decades he continued into the world of philosophy, science and culture to further develop a global perspective on life.

Early years of media development, 1991-1993
In his earliest work as a starting professional artist and designer in 1991-1993, Dekker had started with own fascination about life, focused on developing some concepts into a range of artistic products: From sketches, drawings, pictures and notes, to sculptures, interior objects and multimedia installations. This resulted in a range of  artistic products and services:
 * Photo-work for Amnesty International; small press Barwoel; Nedon electronics; Jerney Kaagman of BV Pop; a young photo-model; some other commissioned photo-shoots; product photography of own work and events; some small autonomous series
 * Construction work in Amsterdam, Goes, Amersfoort; renovation work at Hotel New York; exhibition building for RKS at Kunsthal Rotterdam
 * Design presentation at Fabricati Rotterdam; Gallery KIS Amsterdam & KIM in Rotterdam; Museum Hillesluis in Rotterdam-south
 * Product sales and in commission: Boogkast for client in Zoetermeer; KAST kast for client in Hilversum and client in Amsterdam; Sunflower sculpture for anonymous client.
 * First overview exhibition in PAK'91; photo exhibition in Expo Henk R'dam ; publication in Viva; publication of Marcello business plan ; publication of first edition of of own TENENO literary magazine

The first steps in the world of design were made possible by Peter van Zoetendaal, who also suggested to focus on small prized series products. In the summer of 1993 Dekker launched such a first product, the spider ashtray and next the spider light. By then he was financially so exhausted that he applied for a job as chief technical officer at the Kunsthal under Wim van Krimpen, which only lasted a month or so. Late 1993 he was among the foremost Rotterdam young designers to present their work in Museum Hillesluis in Rotterdam South.

International break through with design, 1994
With Design gallery KIM in Rotterdam the group Rotterdam designers also presented their work on the CASA EUROPEA 1 design exhibition in the Antwerp Expo. Here Dekker presented some new light sculptures, among them the Spider Light. In Rotterdam with his series products he had joined the Unica & Replica (U&R) marketing initiative of Gabriëlle Anceaux, which boosted some publicity most important in ITEMS, the foremost design magazine in the Netherlands of Renny Ramakers‎.

The ongoing and more new cooperation that year brought further opportunities:
 * U&R presented their artist in Rotterdam Hilton in twelve rooms in May 1994, where he presented a roomwide design installation next to a room with the works of Marlies Dekkers. Also he presented a lecture about the history of letter design in interior design.
 * Saskia Meulendijks of La Meul studios arranged a larger installation at the Binnenwegplein in the shop window of Donner bookshop, commissioned a large cupboard rack for the Rivièrahal of Blijdorp Zoo and an interior design for a new gift shop. Later she order a complex new flexible studio interior.
 * In Rotterdam Stichting Volkskracht and later Stichting Sofa offered a grant to facilitate equipment and new product development. That year they noticed a new development of text and interior and arranged an three man exibition in the Haagse Kunstkring, the oldest art society in The Hague.
 * In Rotterdam Dekker also got affiliated with the new Art & design gallery Ecce, where he would get a permanent display of his the spider light and other design for the next five years. Also some presentations in the Kunsthal, installations and art works in the gallery and some publicity in news papers and national television.
 * More important the art and design collective U&R presented their collection on the mayor design fairs in the Benelux the next years. Products were sold to dozens of design shops in the Netherlands. Cooperation with a Belgium distributor expanded that range through Belgium and the north of France. In London the light design shop SKK in Soho also started to sell his work.

Autumn 1994 Dekker received a Dutch design award for his spider light, made out of a bicycle lamp and spokes. The jury praised the resourceful use of industrial fabricated materials. Overall this break through didn't bring in any profit, what he quite naive had expected. At that event of receiving that prize, at that time he had no idea what he was doing there. Worse the Center for Visual Art told he that that was no art, and La Meul studio's broke up the cooperation.

Concept development of new world view since 1994
In the end of 1994 Dekker radically change course from art to science, comparable with the radical course change in the last year of his study from engineering to art. There were a couple of negative motives that drove him in that change, but were also the germ for the construction of a new world view:


 * Early 1990s family and institutions didn't take the choices Dekker had made to become an artist for granted. While students, teachers, designers like Peter van Zoetendaal and some galleries were quite positive, halfway 1992 the Center for Visual Art made clear it was not possible to join their facilities after just one year of Art School.
 * In those days Art and Design were still strictly separate. Remarkably the Center of Commerce also refused to accept his plan for a new company for art and design. It was the same when he offered his business plan to the bank for a loan, all they asked was if someone who would vouch for him.
 * In his first years Dekker was unable to get enough customers and clients, which financially wasn't all that tragic due to social support. It did add up though with the ongoing fragmentation of relationships and foresight.
 * Even more frustrating was his inability to oversee his situation, feeling powerless while at the university with systems thinking they had pictured him that you can. Every further step he took seem to have brought him further away from the ideal he was looking for.

All of that denial had a severe impact on his state of mind, which in periods of despair he tried to acknowledge and sublimate into borderline artistic performance, sexual escapades and other tricks, regular writing and short bursts of art drawings. When all of those failed he decided to define some new ethical foundation to turn this into a new world view with the help of some friends and experts, who could make it happen.

In three months time in 1994-'95 he indeed established some foundations, which in years of concept development heb managed to develop into a methodology and eventually a global modelling language. In the next three years he had to learn the hard way, that he had to conquer his own distrust first. With initially quite imaginary and later on some real assistance he managed to keep the development going of a world view, a view on human thinking and performance and the possibility interlink both in a coherent view of personal appearance in the societal context.

Looking for new ways to building vision and cooperate
In the second half of the 1990s Dekker sculptured over 5000 of the Spider light objects, which were sold all over over Europe and beyond from the United States and South Africa to Japan and New Zealand. In the new millennium the spider light seemed to be re-emerge as a design classic, would could have been considered as a huge succes.

However by the end of 1994 the roller-coaster of that successful year ended for Dekker in an second manic or real fanatic quarter in which he outlined a new vision, that would keep him busy for the next three decades to come.

Three months became three years of unbelievable development.

Global modelling
The succes of his concept development from idea to realization motivated him to return to the fascination for the systems thinking and systems modelling, and the development of the systemic world view. In his quest to create such a world view, he ended up on Wikipedia writing about its building blocks from systems science and organizational theory to cognitive science, art, and scientific modelling.

From 1994 on he has been developing his own philosophy and theory about civilization and science. He started writing about related subjects in the Dutch Wikipedia since September 2004, and has been active on English Wikipedia since April 2007.

Wikipedia
His contributions on the English Wikipedia focuses on systems sciences, modeling & visualization, systems, software and enterprise modeling. In April 2007 he initiated the WikiProject Systems, a WikiProject which aims to improve Wikipedia's coverage of theory and practice of Systems science, and the Portal:Systems science in August 2007.

Exhibitions, a selection

 * 1992-2000 Exhibitions and product presentations, Galerie KIS in Amsterdam
 * 1994: Casa Europea I, Antwerpen Expo, Belgium.
 * 1994: Tien Kamers, Rotterdam Hilton in Rotterdam.
 * 1994: Readable furniture, Haagse Kunstkring in Den Haag.
 * 1995: Multimedia Building performance at Erolife, Jaarbeurs Utrecht.
 * 1996: Kunst Drive-in, with Ron Blom, Las Palmas building, Rotterdam.
 * 1996: Shark Art Galerie, Shop Art expositie, Nieuwe Binnenweg Rotterdam.
 * 1999: Terugblik, Exhibition in Central library, Rotterdam.
 * 1999: De Salon, hedendaagse Rotterdamse en Groninger Kunst, Kunsthal Rotterdam.