Maurice Benayoun

Interview

• "World Skin" (Mestre, 08/11/97)

Biography

Born 29 March 1957 in Mascara in Algeria, Benayoun
http://panoramix.univ-paris1.fr/UFR04/benayoun , studied at the Sorbonne and received a Diploma of Advanced Studies (DEA) in Plastic Arts in 1983. In 1980 he began to experiment with the possibilities of the digital image and participated in 1987 in the creation of Z.A. Production where, as artistic director, he carried out research into the influence that the digital image, virtual reality and interactivity have on the new forms of multimedia writing.

From 1990 to 1992, in collaboration with François Schuiten and Benoit Peeters, he made the series Quarxs, which was broadcast in France and elsewhere and was very successful in international exhibitions. Quarxs constitutes an important stage in the history of the development of 3-D high-definition imagery. His AME (Après Musée Explorable) project, is a reflection on the use of virtual reality in the field of artistic creation.

The first manifestation of the AME project was "Is God Flat?" presented in 1994 at "Artifices 3", followed shortly afterwards by "Is the Devil Curved?" and "And What About Me?", presented in Sidney in 1996 and at the Musée d'Art Contemporain of Lyons in 1997. During ISEA95, he created the first tele-interactive project "The Tunnel under the Atlantic", created in collaboration with the Centre George Pompidou of Paris and the Musee d’Art Contemporain of Montreal, the first section of the "Tunnel around the World" series.

In September 1997 he and Jean Baptiste Barrière presented "World Skin", an installation in which the public participate in a photosafari in a country at war, at Ars Electronica CAVE (Linz-Austria). In February 1998 he presented "Paris-New Delhi Tunnel", the second section of the "Tunnel around the World". He has taught Video Art and New Images at the Université de Paris 1 since 1984. He currently directs a virtual workshop at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux Arts of Paris, a fiction on Internet Art and "Glory" http://artandglory.ensba.fr , an important site of permanent on-line creation.