Maurice Benayoun
Bio Born in Mascara, Algeria in 1957 Currently based in Paris Employs various media, often combining video, virtual reality, the Web, wireless technology, performance, public-space largescale art installations and interactive exhibitions http://www.benayoun.com - During the 1980s, Benayoun directed video installations and short films about contemporary artists, including Daniel Buren, Jean Tinguely, Sol LeWitt and Martial Raysse. - Co-founded Z-A in 1987, a cutting-edge computer graphics and Virtual Reality lab
The Quarxs Computer Animated Series - The intro from 1991 series - The first high definition TV 3D computer graphics series to be given awards globally.through it s realism it questioned scientific truth and distortion.
The Tunnel under the Atlantic VR, networks, video and audio communication, music - A televirtual event linking the Pompidou Centre in Paris to the Museum of Contemporary Art of Montréal in September of 1995 - The Tunnel enabled hundreds of people from both sides to meet
The Tunnel under the Atlantic VR, networks, video and audio communication, music - Within the symbolic matter between the two points, the geological strata have been replace by iconographic strata. - Each time somebody digs they reveal new layers of pictures taken in the history of the two cultures - This collective exploration uncovers fragments of rare or familiar pictures, each of which becomes an opportunities to wake up the collective memory of the participants. - Each digger has a unique experience
The Tunnel under the Atlantic Museum of Contemporary Art of Montréal - Tubes are about two meters in diameter - While viewers are digging, they can converse with people on the other side of the Atlantic - It took about 6 days for diggers from each continent to meet
The Tunnel under the Atlantic Pompidou Centre, Paris - Viewers who come later have the option of exploring paths dug previously, or digging their own paths. - Each of the tube ends was filmed using four camera, so video and audio data from the digger would be re-encoded into spaces which that person dug up
Cosmopolis Interactive installation and VR telescopes - Large scale installation consisting of 12 virtual reality telescopes and 12 projected screens showing an always changing urban panorama
- The views from the VR telescopes are captured and displayed over the projectors
- The panoramas are not what one would expect from a touristy viewpoint, but layout the major urban issues: transportation, environment, architecture, energy, health - The viewers in the middle become purveyors of the City of Tomorrow, a product of intersecting gazes and experiences - At regular intervals, the big panorama is replace by one of the urban landscapes, depicted via a scanning action that sweeps the entire circumference of the central space - It displays key areas in the form of words, sounds, and video images - In various spots, it points out the limitations of an urbanist course or the solutions found in other places that can be adopted
- cosmopolis.avi Cosmopolis Interactive installation and VR telescopes
e-spotting 9/11 Internet VR installation - By using indexing internet news sources, the web allows Benayoun to get real-time images of the world state of mind - Visitors explore the data as a 3D VR globe, viewed from the inside, out - The net functions as a world-wide nervous system
- Data was analyzed for 3200 cities to measure 11 different emotions: Mad, outraged, shocked, terrified, bad, sad, nervous, glad, excited, proud, and satisfied - Maps are dynamic, so as the spotters watch a particular area, they can begin to observe changes and shifts - The entire dynamic map was compiled based on news stories from 9/11 2007
- The emotion maps are further transformed into a musical score, producing euphoric, enigmatic or pathetic music from it
NeORIZON Urban art interactive installation - NeORIZON is an urban interactive art installation produced for Horizon Outdoor exhibit during earts Festival in Shanghai, in October of 2008
- For Benayoun, this project began with a conception of what a skyline is - The skyline of a city defines its profile and it becomes the visible part of it s identity - The city hides it s horizon line by creating a new one - As the city expands, it neutralizes identities
- Basically, the project consists of an invasion of what are called IDWorms - They invite people to look inside, then they convert them into 2D (QR)Codes which are an apparently neutral way of identifying people and objects - They all look the same if you don t know how to decipher them - Over the internet, anyone can get their own 2D code and use it as a personal signature - These codes are able to be read using a cell phone camera
NeORIZON Urban art interactive installation - There is no person, animal, or even object, which cannot be tagged through this ID code. - Also becomes a method to find out about the people we meet
- In a central location, one large video screen shows the virtual cityscape which is continuously growing - At the bottom of the screen, the ground moves away like a long surface of fabric mapped with thousands of ID codes representing people captured by the IDWorms - The visitors are converted into the very texture of the city - As the fabric extrudes out from the screen, it forms cubes and volumes, building a continuously growing city - Benayoun describes it both as a sculpture and a processing machine