portraits
Portrait
Digital creation

Guillaume Marmin

When you work with light, you see the world in a different light and therefore your perception of reality changes.

Guillaume Marmin is a visual artist. He creates installations and performances that play with light, sound and space. He is presenting Passengers (2020) at CHRONIQUES, the Biennale of Digital Imagination.

Updated on 15/01/2021

5 min

After studying audiovisual media at Lyon 2 University and gaining a diploma from Arfis École, a school specialising in film, audiovisual media and digital media, Marmin first worked as a journalist before creating videos for performances. This career path led him to produce music/image performances and installations, eventually becoming a visual artist with a particular focus on light. Combining scientific, artistic and philosophical explorations, Marmin frequently works with researchers, as with Timée (2014), an audiovisual installation produced in partnership with the Lyon Centre for Astrophysics Research (CRAL).

Influenced by kinetic art and the filmmakers Len Lye, Norman McLaren and Stan Brakhage, Marmin studies forms in motion by using new technology, on a quest for a language shared by image and sound. He has broken away from classical narrative styles and screens in order to experiment with all kinds of surfaces, be it mapping on 3D sculptures and buildings or the body in movement. Passengers (2020), presented at CHRONIQUES, offers a contemplative experience. Set up inside a container, it invites the viewer to move through it and see their image multiplied in a landscape of moving pixels.

Marmin’s work is also anchored in its contemporaneity. In Après-nous le déluge (2011), the artist focused on climate-based phenomena, while Timée (2014) explored physics and its paradigms. He illustrates the ambivalence of an era in its relationship between nature and technology.

Marmin’s connection to music has led him to work with various artists, designing their sets and taking part in their live performances. With musician Jeff Mills, a pioneer of techno music, he played Close Encounter Of The Fourth Kind (2016), a sound and light installation inspired by the sci-fi thriller Close Encounters Of The Third Kind (1977). His works have been shown in many countries, among them the Czech Republic at the Signal Festival with his installation Rococo (2018) and with Timée at the Digital Choc festival, organised by the Institut français in Japan.

  • 2005

    2005

    His first work is presented in 2005 at the Lyon Contemporary Art Biennale, where he is among the “young artists” selection.

  • 2011

    2011

    Marmin teaches filmmaking and directing at Arfis École and the Conservatoire de Lyon.

  • 2016

    2016

    The artist works with one of the pioneers of techno music, Jeff Mills, creating Close Encounter Of The Fourth Kind.

  • 2018

    2018

    The Signal Festival, Czech Republic, commissions the installation Rococo.

  • 2019

    2019

    1,3 Seconde is a piece created for the Constellations festival in Metz.

  • 2020

    2020

    Marmin exhibits Passengers at CHRONIQUES, the Biennale of Digital Imagination.

The Institut français and the artist

With Passengers (2020), Guillaume Marmin is programmed as part of Chroniques, the Biennale of Digital Imagination (taking place from 12 November 2020 to 17 January 2021). The Institut français is a partner of Chroniques with the Focus digital arts and creations. 

Find out more about the Focus digital arts and creations.

 

L'institut français, LAB