Maurice Benayoun (aka MoBen or 莫奔) (born 29 March 1957) is a French new-media artist, curator, and theorist based in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

and

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...

. His work employs various media, including

video Video is an electronic medium for the recording, copying, playback, broadcasting, and display of moving visual media. Video was first developed for mechanical television systems, which were quickly replaced by cathode-ray tube (CRT) syste ...

computer graphics Computer graphics deals with generating images with the aid of computers. Today, computer graphics is a core technology in digital photography, film, video games, cell phone and computer displays, and many specialized applications. A great de ...

immersive virtual reality Immersion into virtual reality (VR) is a perception of being physically present in a non-physical world. The perception is created by surrounding the user of the VR system in images, sound or other stimuli that provide an engrossing total enviro ...

, the Internet,

performance A performance is an act of staging or presenting a play, concert, or other form of entertainment. It is also defined as the action or process of carrying out or accomplishing an action, task, or function. Management science In the work place ...

EEG Electroencephalography (EEG) is a method to record an electrogram of the spontaneous electrical activity of the brain. The biosignals detected by EEG have been shown to represent the postsynaptic potentials of pyramidal neurons in the neocortex ...

3D Printing 3D printing or additive manufacturing is the Manufacturing, construction of a three-dimensional object from a computer-aided design, CAD model or a digital 3D modeling, 3D model. It can be done in a variety of processes in which material is ...

, large-scale urban media art, robotics,

NFT A non-fungible token (NFT) is a unique digital identifier that cannot be copied, substituted, or subdivided, that is recorded in a blockchain, and that is used to certify authenticity and ownership. The ownership of an NFT is recorded in the ...

s, and

Blockchain A blockchain is a type of distributed ledger technology (DLT) that consists of growing lists of records, called ''blocks'', that are securely linked together using cryptography. Each block contains a cryptographic hash of the previous block, a ...

based artworks, installations and

interactive Across the many fields concerned with interactivity, including information science, computer science, human-computer interaction, communication, and industrial design, there is little agreement over the meaning of the term "interactivity", but mo ...

exhibitions.

Biography

Born in

Mascara Mascara is a cosmetic commonly used to enhance the upper and lower eyelashes. It is used to darken, thicken, lengthen, and/or define the eyelashes. Normally in one of three forms—liquid, powder, or cream—the modern mascara product has vario ...

Algeria ) , image_map = Algeria (centered orthographic projection).svg , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Algiers , coordinates = , largest_city = capital , relig ...

, in March 1957, as a war orphan. His father was killed before his birth in the Algerian independence war. He moved to France in 1958, following his mother and his brother, to live in popular suburbs in north Paris where the family stayed during most of his childhood.

Education

Bennayoun's doctorate thesis at the Sorbonne, ''Artistic Intentions at Work, Hypothesis for Committing Art'', was published in 2011.

Career

Benayoun taught in contemporary and fine arts at Pantheon-Sorbonne University. In 1987 he co-founded Z-A Production (1987–2003), a

and

virtual reality Virtual reality (VR) is a simulated experience that employs pose tracking and 3D near-eye displays to give the user an immersive feel of a virtual world. Applications of virtual reality include entertainment (particularly video games), educ ...

private lab. Between 1990 and 1993, Benayoun collaborated with Belgian graphic novelists

François Schuiten François Schuiten (; born 26 April 1956) is a Belgian comic book artist. He is best known for drawing the series '' Les Cités Obscures''. Biography François Schuiten was born in Brussels, Belgium in 1956.De Weyer, Geert (2005). "François Sc ...

and philosopher

Benoît Peeters Benoît Peeters (; born 1956) is a French comics writer, novelist, and comics studies scholar. Biography After a degree in Philosophy at Université de Paris I, Peeters prepared his Master's at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociale ...

on ''

Quarxs ''Quarxs'' was one of the earliest computer animated series, predating '' ReBoot'', and the first one produced in HD. It was aired between 1990 and 1993. Each episode was made in HDTV and lasted no more than three minutes. Only twelve episodes o ...

'', the first animation series made of HD computer graphics, exploring variant creatures with alternate physical laws.Stephen Wilson, ''Information Arts: Intersections of Art, Science, and Technology'', MIT Press, 2002, p705. For his first solo show, Benayoun presented a virtual reality installation linking two art museums: the Pompidou Center in Paris and the

Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal The Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal (MACM) is a contemporary art museum in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is located on the Place des festivals in the Quartier des spectacles and is part of the Place des Arts complex. Founded in 1964, it is ...

. Benayoun conceived and directed the exhibition ''Cosmopolis, Overwriting the City'' (2005), an art and science immersive installation presented during the French Year in

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

in Shanghai, Beijing, Chengdu, and Chongqing. This was Maurice Benayoun's first experience in China, and the reception by the public played an important role in later Benayoun's move to Asia.

Key concepts

Sublimation vs Reification – Benayoun identified two main trends affect the evolution of the human experience of materiality. Borrowing the term from chemistry, ''Sublimation'' is the operation converting the world into data that can be treated at the same time by natural or artificial intelligence. This allows the cognitive integration of the physical as well as its absolute control. Coming from

Karl Marx Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...

, ''Reification'' is the conversion of thoughts into objects. The process requires EEG (Electro Encephalography) and BCI (Brain-Computer Interaction) in association with construction technologies like

. Open Media, in 2000, considered his works as a form of ''Open Media Art'', paraphrasing

Jon Ippolito Jon Ippolito is an artist, educator, new media scholar, and former curator at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. Ippolito studied astrophysics and painting in the early 1980s, then pursued Internet art in the 1990s. His works explore digitally indu ...

, not limited to the traditional forms, media and economic schemes of art, but also not necessarily based on a specific medium, digital or using technologies. Open takes here the sense of freedom in the means of expression. Infra-realism – (Infra-realisme in French, could be interpreted as 'sub-realism') was coined in the early 90s to describe the specificity of the new form of realism emerging from 3D computer graphics. During the production of

(1989–1993), the author, Benayoun wanted to identify the difference between visual realism based on the transcription of how the world reflects light, and what he called Infra-realism, or "realism of the depth" or "the deep realism behind the surface".Madsen, Kim H., Qvortrup, Lars. "Production Methods: Behind the Scenes of Virtual Inhabited 3D Worlds." Springer Science & Business Media, 6 Dec. 2012 (1st edition 2002) - pp. 53-54. , 9781447100638

Selected awards

Prix Ars Electronica The Prix Ars Electronica is one of the best known and longest running yearly prizes in the field of electronic and interactive art, computer animation, digital culture and music. It has been awarded since 1987 by Ars Electronica (Linz, Austria) ...

Visionary Pioneer of Media Art (nomination), 2014 * SACD Award, Interactive Arts, Paris, June 2009 * Golden Nica (first prize), interactive art category, ARS ELECTRONICA Festival,

Linz, Austria Linz ( , ; cs, Linec) is the capital of Upper Austria and third-largest city in Austria. In the north of the country, it is on the Danube south of the Czech border. In 2018, the population was 204,846. In 2009, it was a European Capital of ...

, 1998 * Jose Abel Prize, Best European animation film, Cinanima, Animation Film Festival of

Espinho, Portugal Espinho () is a city and a municipality located in the Aveiro District, Portugal. It is located in both the Greater Porto and the Metropolitan Area of Porto, 16 km from its city centre. It is one of the smallest municipalities in Portugal and ...

, October 1994 * Best Electronic Special Effects, International Monitor Awards, Los Angeles, 1993 * Best Video Paint Design, International Monitor Award, Los Angeles 1993 * First Prize Pixel INA, Opens Title category Imagina '93, Monte Carlo, February 1993 * First Prize, Third Dimension Award, SCAM, Paris, November 1991 * 1st Prize, Artistic Animation category,

Truevision Truevision, Inc. was a maker of digital video processing add-on boards for PC computers. It was founded by Cathleen Asch, Carl Calabria, Joseph Haaf, Bryan Hunt, Brad Pillow, Joe Shepard and Jeff Walters and others when AT&T split off their E ...

competition,

SIGGRAPH SIGGRAPH (Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques) is an annual conference on computer graphics (CG) organized by the ACM SIGGRAPH, starting in 1974. The main conference is held in North America; SIGGRAPH Asia ...

, Las Vegas, 1991

References

Citations

General sources

* ADA, Archive of Digital Art, Missing Matter

* FMX/09, Paris ACM SIGGRAPH, ''ZA Story, the Quarxs, God and the Devil'

2009 * Benayoun, M.,"A Nano-Leap for Mankind" in ''The Dump, 207 Hypotheses for Committing Art'', bilingual (English/French) Fyp éditions, France, July 2011, pp. 349–351. * Benayoun, M.

"Architecture reactive de la communication" (French), July 1998

, Jean-Pierre Balpe, ''Maurice Benayoun Open Art 1980 - 2010'', Nouvelles éditions Scala, 2011, French version, * Maurice Benayoun, Josef Bares, ''Urban Media Art Paradox: Critical Fusion vs Urban Cosmetics'' in ''What Urban Media Art Can Do: Why, When, Where and How'', Susa Pop, Tanya Toft, editors, AVedition publisher, 2016, pp. 81–89, 450–453, * Benayoun, M., ''The Nervous Breakdown of the Global Body, an Organic Model of the Connected World'', in Proceedings of Futur en Seine 2009, ed. Cap Digital, 2010, . * Sara and Tom Pendergast, ''Contemporary Artists'' St James Press, 2001, pp. 155–158, *

Peter Weibel Peter Weibel (; born 5 March 1944 in Odessa, USSR) is an internationally known Austrian post-conceptual artist, curator and new media theoretician. He started out in 1964 as a visual poet but soon jumped from the page to the screen within the sen ...

, Jeffrey Shaw, ''Future Cinema'', MIT Press 2003, pp. 472,572-581, *

, ''Virtual Art, from Illusion to Immersion'', MIT Press 2004, pp. 237–240, , *

Frank Popper Frank Popper (17 April 1918 – 12 July 2020) was a Czech-born French-British historian of art and technology and Professor Emeritus of Aesthetics and the Science of Art at the University of Paris VIII. He was decorated with the medal of the Lé ...

, ''From Technology to Virtual Art'', MIT Press 2005, pp. 201–205, * Derrick de Kerckhove, ''The Architecture of Intelligence'', Birkhäuser 2005, pp. 40,48,51,73, * Gerfried Stocker and Christine Schöpf, ''Flesh Factor'', Ars Electronica Festival 1997, Verlag Springer 1997, pp. 312–315 *

Fred Forest Fred Forest (born July 6, 1933 in Mascara, French Algeria) is a French new media artist making use of video, photography, the printed press, mail, radio, television, telephone, telematics, and the internet in a wide range of installations, perform ...

''Art et Internet'', Editions Cercle D'Art / Imaginaire Mode d'Emploi, pp. 61 – 63 *

Christine Buci-Glucksmann Christine Buci-Glucksmann is a French philosopher and Professor Emeritus from University of Paris VIII specializing in the aesthetics of the Baroque and Japan, and computer art. Her best-known work in English is ''Baroque Reason: The Aesthetics o ...

, "L’art à l’époque virtuel", in Frontières esthétiques de l’art, Arts 8, Paris: L’Harmattan, 2004 *

br>Moulon.net
Conférence Report: Media Art in France, Un Point d'Actu, L'Art Numerique, p. 123 * Barbara Robertso
CGW.com
''Without Bounds'' in CGW volume 32 issue 4 April 2009 * Dominique Moulon, ''Art Contemporain, Nouveaux Médias'', Nouvelles éditions Scala, Paris 2011,

External links

*
Official Blog/creation ''The Dump''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Benayoun, Maurice 1957 births Living people French contemporary artists French digital artists New media artists French installation artists Virtual reality pioneers People from Mascara, Algeria French bloggers French male writers Male bloggers Paris 8 University Vincennes-Saint-Denis faculty