Nicolas Bernier: Sound/Material - Between minimalism, old school oscillators, design, punk rock, science fiction, and musique concrète

ABSTRACT

This artist talk will present the conceptual background of my trans-disciplinary artistic approach that takes elements of minimalism, old school electronics, design, punk rock, science fiction, and musique concrète in order to produce sound installations and performances. I will explain the thoughts that connect these dots and how my work is always strongly tied to the physical/material world despite the "digital" fact.

BIOGRAPHY

Nicolas Bernier creates audiovisual performances and installations, musique concrète, live electronics improvisations and video art while also working with dance, theatre, moving images and within interdisciplinary contexts. In the midst of this eclecticism, his artistic concerns remain constant: the balance between the cerebral and the sensual, and between organic sound sources and digital processing. Awardee of a Golden Nica at Prix Ars Electronica 2013 (Austria), his work have been presented in major events and venues like SONAR (Spain), Mutek (Canada), DotMov Festival (Japan), ZKM (Germany), Transmediale (Germany) and LABoral (Spain) to name a few. His sound compositions are widely published on electronic music labels: Crónica (Portugal), LINE (US), leerraum (Switzerland), Entr’acte (UK) and empreintes DIGITALes (Québec). He holds a PhD in sonic arts from the University of Huddersfield (UK). He his a member of Perte de signal, a media arts research and development centre based in Montreal and is an adjunct professor in the Digital Music program of the Université de Montréal.

NicolasBernier