Born in 1952, Jean-Jacques Birgé is, at one and the same time, a music composer, sound designer, film director and multimedia author.
After studying cinema at the French National Film School (IDHEC), Jean-Jacques Birgé conceived a passion for sound and images, particularly due to their potentialities to produce sense.
In 1975 he set up the record label GRRR and in 1976 the orchestra named Un Drame Musical Instantané (with Bernard Vitet and Francis Gorgé). He composes for films (I.Barrère, D.Belloir, D.Cabrera, P.Desgraupes, P.Morize, F.Reichenbach, F.Romand, J.Rouxel, R.Sangla, M.Trillat, Cinemathèque Albert Kahn, Cité des Sciences et de l'Industrie...), ballets (J.Gaudin, K.Saporta...), photography (Arles), theater (Anne-Laure Liégeois), radio, books read aloud, and he has recorded 30 albums. On stage, he brought live music from silent movies into fashion (more than 26 creations) and he improvises or produces multimedia shows. He was nominated at the Victoires de la Musique for Le K with actor Richard Bohringer.
Concerning movies, twenty years after La nuit du phoque, he realized Vis à vis: Idir et Johnny Clegg a capella. He won a British Academy Award of Film & TV Arts and the Locarno Video Festival Jury Award in 1994, collectively, for Sarajevo, a street under siege, and his short movie The Sniper was shown in more than 1000 cinemas in France…
As a specialist in synthesis instruments, he is attracted by new technologies which involve unknown or iconoclastic objects. In parallel, he is a sound designer and a composer for exhibitions (Il était une fois la fête foraine at the Grande Halle de la Villette, The Extraordinary Museum in Japan, The Laying of the Hands in Amsterdam, Passerelle et L'argent in Belgium, Le Siècle Métro in Paris, Jours de Cirque in Monaco, French Pavillion at Aïchi International World Fair, Robots in Futuroscope...); for websites (BDDP-TBWA, Laurent-Perrier, Ville de Lyon, Compagnie Générale des Eaux, Numer, Determinism, Virtools, Adidas, Nike, Ptits Repères, Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Musée de l'Immigration...); for CD-Rom (At the circus with Seurat, Fenêtre sur l'Art, Cahiers Passeport, Europrix 98, AZ, Firmenich, DVD-Rom Le Louvre, Le Grand Jeu, Sethi et la couronne d'Egypte, Mr Men series, Salto and Zelia, Domicile d'Ange Heureux...); or DVD 1+1, a natural story of sexuality (Möbius Sciences Award, International Möbius Jury Award, Europrix E-Learning Award); for games such as Le Bal (SACD Interactive Creation Award). He is a multimedia author of Carton (an enhanced-CD where an original game completes each song), Machiavel (an interactive video scratch created with Antoine Schmitt) and last, but not least, Alphabet, created with Murielle Lefèvre and Frédéric Durieu from the book by Kveta Pacovska (Grand Prix Möbius International, SACD Multimedia Award, Bologna Award of the Best Adaptation, and 13 other international awards in USA, Japan, France, Germany, the Nederlands...).
With this CD-Rom, he inaugurates a new direction of work based on generative and interactive creation, offering the gamer the pleasure of discovering each time a new interpretation (on-line and off-line). He collaborates regularly with lecielestbleu.com (with F. Durieu, SCAM Award of the Best Internet Site, NarrowCast Content Award) and flyingpuppet.com (with N. Clauss, Centre Pompidou Flash Festival Special Award).
He signs Les Portes with Clauss, an intercative video installation, and Nabaz'mob with Antoine Schmitt, an opera for 100 Nabaztag rabbits for which he's also the sound design father.
He teaches and gives conferences: Ecole des Gobelins, INA, Paris VIII, Céci, IRCAM, Autograf, CNAM, ENJMIN, ENSCI, Arts Décos (Amiens and Strasbourg), Beaux-Arts (Quimper), Pôle Atlantique, MediaLab (Finland), IESAV (Lebanon), SMCQ (Canada), Femis (Germany), Pilots (Spain), etc.
Born in 1968. Nicolas Clauss, self-taught artist, stopped (provisory) painting in 2000 to do Web and multimedia projects. He is the co-founder of the site lecielestbleu.com, and created his own space, flyingpuppet.com, in 2001.
He has a master's degree in experimental and social psychology and a bachelor degree in arts and picture technologies (ATI). He has exhibited his pictures since 1989, in solo shows (Galerie Arnoux in Paris, Centre Culturel Français de Séoul and Seoul International Art Fair in Korea, Crawford Gallery, Beatty Gallery and Sidney Art Theater in Australia), and collectively (Grands et Jeunes d'Aujourd'hui et Réalités Nouvelles at the Grand Palais in Paris, Howard Leonard Gallery and Savah Gallery in Australia, Gana Art Center in Korea, etc.). He exhibited his first installation at the Espace Culturel du Prieuré in Maule.
In his multimedia works, he goes on building universes where the beautiful thickness of the paste does not overflow the transparent effects, and the movement of the mouse draws out the gesture of the painter. On Flying Puppet, he has conceived and realized over 50 on-line interactive pieces, often collaborating with musicians (Jean-Jacques Birgé of course, but also François Baxas, Denis Colin, Patricia Dallio, Pascale Labbé, Thomas Le Saulnier, Jean Morières, Hervé Zénouda).
Passionately fond of contemporary dance, he was nominated at the Möbius 2001 for Danse ! (DadaMedia) and created Soaring Steps for BBC-On-line, DeepSea and Temptation for Diesel clothes. During an artist residency at the ECM des Mureaux, following statements of immigrants, he realized the web site Cinq Ailleurs. Since then, he has multiplied the projects of that kind with children and teenagers, as well as pedagogical interventions around his work and conferences-performances (Centre Pompidou, Numer, Cité du Livre, ECM, Le Cube...).
He received the Centre Pompidou Flash Festival 2002 Special Award (Show: Interactive Dance), the SCAM Award of the Best Internet Site 2001-2002 for LeCielEstBleu, and the Net-Art Third Award at La Villette Numérique 2002. Flyingpuppet.com et cinq-ailleurs.com were Macromedia Sites of the Day.
He signs Les Portes with Birgé, an intercative video installation.
His work is shown in exhibitions and sites in France (Incident.net, Provisoire.net, VidéoFormes, Le Cube, La Friche Belle de Mai, Arte.tv), America (Rhizome.org, Turbulence.org, ComputerFineArts.com, PixelPress.org, Revue digitale Chair-et-métal, Naqoyqatsi / Miramax, ATHICA / Athens Institute of Contemporary Art, SoftForm / Toronto Propeller Gallery, Boston Center for the Arts / 404, Argentina / File, Brazil / Tamayo Museum, Mexico...), Germany (A Virtual Museum, Java Museum, Free Manifesta), Switzerland (Festival VIPER Basel), Great Britain (Digital Pocket Gallery, Liberarti), Holland (MAFF), Korea (Hexa Media Festival), Czechia (Violens Festival Tabor), Turquey (Istanbul Contemporary Art Museum)...
Since Somnambules he has created many new participative artworks (websites and more and more installations) : jai10ans.com, delartsijeveux.com, L'ardoise, Un palpitant, Or not toupie, Les musiciens...
Born in 1948, Didier Silhol danced first with Joseph Russillo, then at Free Dance Song (with Annick Nozati, Christiane de Rougemont, Hideyuki Yano, Elsa Wolliaston, Harry Sheppard). He studied classical dance with Andreï Glegolski, and Cunningham technics with Charles Moulton and Robert Kovitch. In 1978, he met Lisa Nelson and Steve Paxton during a course of Danse Contact Improvisation.
In 1980, he co-founded the Association Danse Contact Improvisation and began to teach this technique and dance approach. He plays for several companies (Odile Duboc, Stéphanie Aubin, Jean-Claude Gallotta, Christiane Blaise, Geneviève Sorin, etc.).
A choreographer since 1978, he works with musicians and art designers: Emotion en péril, for three dancers and one double-bass player, 1994 - Noir sans être nu, solo and film, 1995 - Midi-Minuit, a 12 hour performance for eight dancers at Fondation Cartier, 1996 - Sans cesse, opera-ballet with sixty people in social trouble and forty musicians (music by Thomas Gubitsch) in Le Mans, 1996 - Le Piège de Méduse for the opening of the Musée Erik Satie, 1998 - Tu le vois le voleur, duo, 1999 - Zoo Musique, an interpretation of the play by Jacques Rebotier for 17 musicians et 1 dancer, 1999-2003 - Creation for the Paris CNR Diploma, 2000 - Au lieu dit la mi-temps, quintet, 2001…
He has organized performances in France, Canada, Portugal, Italy, and an experimental film festival at the Ménagerie de Verre with Yann Beauvais.
He teaches at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse in Paris.
He also creates experimental films (Entre amis, 1992 - Rue de larme et d’eau riante, 1996 - L’instant T, 1997).
