17.12. Artist Talk with Alexandre Saunier: Machines that perform light
Time:
Tuesday,17 December 2024, 10 - 11 a.m.
Location:
Online via BBB https://meeting.uni-weimar.de/b/mar-jlm-ohz-hgx
How can we conceive of light as an active material that acts, plays, moves, and behaves as if it was alive? Throughout the twentieth century, artists invented technological machines to grant light expressive autonomy. It is a history deeply rooted in technoscientific artistic exploration, where artists boldly embraced electric, mechanical, electronic, and computational technologies ranging from the simplest incandescent bulb to the most complex machine learning algorithms.
Alexandre Saunier will explore artistic practices that bring light to life through real-time computation. Using concrete examples from his work that integrates light with sensing and neural network technologies, he will navigate the intersections of art, history, science, and engineering to discuss how light can become a lively and expressive performer.
Alexandre Saunier (he/him) is an artist and professor in the Audiovisual department at LUCA School of Arts, KU Leuven. With a deep interest in the theory and history of media arts, cybernetics, and complex systems theory, his work merges artistic practice with academic research, focusing on the interactions between light, sound, autonomous systems, and sensory perception.
Alexandre holds a PhD from Concordia University (2023), where he studied the contemporary and historical practices of light as an artistic medium driven by real-time computational systems. His previous studies include mathematics and physics (CPGE, 2009), sound design and engineering (ENS Louis Lumière, 2012), and he was a fellow at ENSADLab, where he conducted research on behavioral robotics and interactive lighting (ENS Arts Décoratifs, 2015).
Alexandre’s artistic and research work is regularly presented at major international venues, including Mutek Montreal, Elektra BIAN, Festival Internacional de la Imagen, Ars Electronica, ISEA, Impakt Festival, MuffatHalle, Bcn_llum, ALIFE Conference, Media Art History, and Nuit Blanche Toronto.
Hosted by the Interface Design at Bauhaus-Universität Weimar as part of the project module: Enacted photons – exploring light as an artistic medium