i was born on january 19th 1964 and raised in a boomtown working class environment
i made a lot of drawings as a child and received much attention by the rest of the family
i had my first audience in the waitingroom of the
general practitioner when i was 4 years old, singing
the beatles' song 'michelle'
i got my first guitar at the age of 8 and
had a teacher for half a year but got bored with the conventional lessons
i kept the guitar and although it didn't sound too good, i liked to use it as a toy
i finished primary school with high expectations
on secondary school i graduated in 1983 on the highest level, with good results
in dutch and english
i went to study social sciences for two years
at the university of nijmegen, the netherlands
meanwhile i also enjoyed concerts of garage-, sixties trash
and rock 'n rollbands and picked up playing bass guitar
after giving it a lot of thought i decided i could mean more to
this planet as an artist than as a graduate in social or political science
i returned to my place of birth in 1985 to concentrate more on culture
and started to work as a volunteer in a cultural centre
within half a year i became a member of the centre's staff and
was film coordinator for about a year
meanwhile i played in a couple of bands that rehearsed there, with a style ranging
from psychobilly to garage and psychedelic rocksongs
i played slap bass and sang in the first psychobilly band in the city called 'the fresh brains'
with jacco van rooij on guitar, sappho panhuysen on double bass and joost harends on drums
the first group in which i could really flourish for a short period as a singer and guitarist, was
the city beat fountains, a psychedelic revival band that existed from 1986 until 1988, with intelligent compositions and a pretty wild perfomance in their best days
i went to study at the design academy
in eindhoven in 1988 - then named aive - and very soon experienced difficulties combining this with playing in a band
i chose to play experimental funk on a modest level with fellow students
i followed modules of three different departments of the academy: living, environment and information
after 5 years on this academy i had to end it with a certificate, in spite of all the good results
in 1994 i started to play in the band hayride and soon found a workspace at low costs in the old van abbe karel 1 cigar factory, where i could experiment with design and music
at the same time i spent a lot of effort in trying to schedule the building for preservation, since it was a nice example of early modern architecture (1926),
but unfortunately a project developer already had the permit for the demolition
recently it became clear that his business went bankrupt due to mismanagement
a plan for a rebuild and optimisation for future use as a centre for disregarded talent
has been initiated
in 1999 i followed a one year course in digital design and had a succesful stage period at
a graphic design studio
combining music and design succesfully became something very important to achieve
i formed the instrumental band twang with kindred spirits, some of them from the city beat fountains, playing exactly the kind of surf music we liked and started to perform as from 2001
i started my own business as a digital designer on may 1st 2000 without any financial resources and worked
for a few graphic designstudios as well as for océ
international headquarters
i became responsible for the interface design of the web sites of océ
from late 2001 till halfway 2003
the design was sold to more than 30 operating companies worldwide
and was used by océ until 2013
i raised a record label named 'twang records' and was able to release the vinyl album
'licensed to thrill' by twang at the end of 2002
twang was in fact the first serious instrumental surfband in town and the independent approach generated much appreciation by a small audience
the band disintegrated halfway 2003, mainly because robert's vision was not sufficiently adopted by the other members
after this hectic period it became clear that the same destructive commercial phenomena played a role in different disciplines
therefore robert started investigating the combination of music, architecture, art, science, technology and design, stressing the importance of the concept of the universal man because it generates a valuable connection with the world
in august 2003 i raised the new taxandria foundation,
an organisation that investigated the possibilities of enhancing the quality of the human environment
an important aspect of this research is genealogy, an activity that is continued onto this day
the foundation and my company lab 4 lasted until november 2013, due to more important activities
since 2004 i decided that working autonomously has the highest priority for him,
because that's the best guarantee for his health, integrity and the quality of my art
i started drawing, photographing and making
independent graphic works
i got the honourable assignment for the website celebrating the 100th birthday of frits philips in 2005
in the same year my designstudio moved to a brand new building, close to the centre of town
late 2005 i raised the group glasco turnpike in which i sang and played guitar
the glasco turnpike album 'long distance love' was released on the internet in august 2008
i started pre-producing several albums,
on which i appear as the solo-artist doctor robert who is
playing all the instruments, arranging the rhythm-tracks and
engineering the sound
it turned out to be a very inspirational state, allowing me to
produce exactly the kind of music and artwork i loved
since 2011 i also started painting and creating other
imaging art like mixed media works
the creation of new songs came to a halt in 2013, but as from september 2016 recordings
started again, resulting in five new albums
in 2015 it's becoming clear that my knowledge of mental health based on twenty years of experience
can no longer be ignored
therefore i invented the netherlands formula,
a system created in order to improve mental and public health substantially
i also started working seriously on a book
about genealogical research on ancestry from high nobility in the middle ages
in 2016 i created a screenplay visual of the dutch revolt with a main role for bishop franciscus sonnius
i also initiated a restoration proposal for the cross tower of the saint john's cathedral in 's-hertogenbosch
furthermore i designed a future car without wheels and without the need for physical roads
i made a start with a screenplay for an autobiographic motion picture, named 'doctor robert', laying an accent
on the process of recovery from a severe psychiatric diagnosis that lasted nine years, from 1995 until 2004
in 2017 i designed a local food centre, an advanced greenhouse facilitating social interaction ment for the
periphery between the urban and rural environment; it celebrates the 100th anniversary of De Stijl
i also designed a pallet couch for the circular economy
