5 questions to the sound visual artist Jérémy Oury

Jérémy Oury, sound visual artist from Paris, France. Photography © J. Oury

1.Tell us what you do and your beginnings.

I’m a digital artist combining audio and visual skills to make singular digital forms as architectural mapping, fulldome and original creation for theater.

I focus my artwork on a research about illusions from geometric distortions, on the synesthesia between sound and video and on immersive forms in order to place the viewer at the center of a minimalist virtual universe to disrupt his perception of space.

Since 2014, my artwork was awarded in various international video mapping festivals and fulldome festivals. I participated to digital exhibition at ISEA Symposium 2019 in South Korea, FILE festival in Brazil, +CODE in Argentina or Madatac in Spain among others.

During my studies in audiovisual BTS, I started to practice VJing on our student parties and for some nightclubs in Lyon, France. Although I was in the sound section, I was interested in what my classmates were doing in the image section and how video process works. Then I started projection mapping on buildings with the 1Minute Projection Mapping competition which takes place every year in Japan. The duration of the competition seemed to me a reasonable opportunity to start this kind of project. It was awesome to watch the streaming and see my project selected among the 16 finalists.

I pursued this practice through other competitions and collaborating sometimes with my friend Antoine Briot for the sound part. We won, as ARCAAN Collective team, the amator category at the FIMG festival in Spain and  I won then at the FIMA in Mexico in 2015.

The real recognition of my artwork from professionals was in 2017 when I won the jury prize at the Luz y Vanguardias festival in Spain with the mapping PRISM.

With all this contacts, I participated to severals open call for digital festival with mesmerized artworks at 360° (patio of a monastery at the Visualia festival with IMMERSIVE) or 270° (hangar for Illuminate festival), in fulldome format (for geodesic dome), or by projecting on giant sculptures (DIVA, a low poly female body of 4 meters by the artist Thomas Voillaume). While continuing time to time to international video mapping competitions as Zsolnay Light Art, KIYV Light festival, BAM festival, 1Min PM, etc.

Parallel to all these activities in digital art, I collaborate on theater projects in sound or video with french companies such as Jeanne Dark by Marion Siéfert, Killing Robots by Linda Blanchet, Destin(s) de Jérôme Cochet, Je suis la bête by Julie Delille, Fracassés by Gabriel Dufay, Mesure pour Mesure de Karim Bel Kacem…

2.What are your favorite museums in the world? Why?

I was touched by the Fondation Vasarely in Aix-En-Provence, where this “centre architectonique” is an artwork in itself integrating dozens of the artist’s monumental works. Vasarely’s optical works initiate in painting the distortions of perspective that we apply today in architectural mapping.

I also had the opportunity to visit the Tate Modern in London with its huge reception hall with the impressive Fons Americanus fountain by Kara Walker at its center. I could see some excellent exhibitions including one on Olafur Eliasson.

The Louvre Museum in Paris remains an essential reference with its many floors of paintings. The ones of Hubert Robert have marked me a lot. He painted monuments in ruins, anticipating the ravages of time on these buildings. Same for John Martin and his imposing landscapes.

Finally, I also appreciate the digital art exhibitions proposed at the 104 in Paris with the Biennale Némo, and those of the FILE festival in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, a real gem of digital art discoveries and mesmerized experiences offered to the spectators.

3.How important are social networks in your business? And which platform do you prefer and why.

Most of my projects can be seen on Vimeo, a platform that has privileged quality and art in what it offers compared to Youtube’s all-in-one oven.

Facebook, despite all its flaws and constraints, remains a very important network, both to disseminate information and potentially reach a new audience, but also to federate artistic communities. In particular, I lead the group List of International Video Mapping Open Call & Contest to share data from open call and video mapping contest.

I remain a little disappointed by Instagram, although the hashtag system is very interesting for discoveries, the quality of some projects is drowned out by the quantity of photos posted.

4.What are your future projects? 

I just finished a video mapping project in Andorra in partnership with the Ull Nu festival and the French embassy. This first  edition of Videomapping nights provides the basis for the development of this type of projection in this country.

I also currently collaborating with the Institut Français de Jérusalem, to make an artistic residency and a workshop with local artists to lead a collaborative mapping.

And, trying to maintain the rhythm of one short fulldome film per year, I finalize Height-Scape, a fulldome/Virtual Reality project less abstract and more political talking about the management of water resources to feel the climatic changes induced in places as seaside, artificial lakes, salar, islands. Of course, I’m waiting, as everyone, the reopening of festivals, exhibitions and mapping contest for 2021! A lot have to cancel or rescheduled their program.

5.To create greater engagement among museums, artists and professionals, do you have any advice for cultural projects such as #MuseumWeek?

I only could encourage museum to invite artists, and make meetings, master classes, workshops so that we can exchange between artists but also with professionals, guaranteeing the diffusion of our artwork. Of course, we must not forget to propose as many projects inside museums as outside (for example through a projection on the building) to open up to the public space and invite them to go inside!

Interview by Fabio Pariante, journalist

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Jérémy Oury on social networks: Instagram – Facebook – Vimeo – SoundCloud

Jérémy Oury is a French digital artist – creator of sound and images. His research is based on the creation of minimal geometric illusions and distortions: immersive mappings in which the sense of space is lost between plays of lights, shadows and synchronized sounds for the theater, LED screens and architectures.

Oury’s work has been awarded in many international video mapping festivals, such as the Award best Fulldome Short Form – Macon film festival 2019 (USA), Award mapping 1st- Festival Luz y Vanguardias 2017 (Spain), Award mapping 1st amateur – FIMA 2015 (Mexico) and Award mapping 1st – Bam contest 2017 (Belgium). Jérémy Oury lives and works in Paris.