Behavioral Objects: A Case Study; Céleste Boursier-mougenot

by Samuel Bianchini (editor), Emanuele Quinz (Editor)

Three immersive installations by French artist Céleste Boursier-Mougenot (b. 1961) are featured in this well-illustrated reader accompanying the artist s 2016 exhibition from here to ear at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. Since 1994, Boursier-Mougenot, a musician by training, has been combining visual arts and experimental music. Using behavioral objects such as a roomful of roving pianos or finches roosting on amplified guitars, the artist allows the musical potential of unorthodox configurations of materials and media to generate living music. The history behind the concept of behavioral objects and the parameters of this field of research and practice, dating to the emergence of cybernetics is also examined in the reader. Paris-based artist and the director of research group Reflective Interaction, Samuel Bianchini, and curator Emanuele Quinz edit both reader and accompanying monograph on this fascinating artist who has exhibited internationally from MoMA PS1, NY, to the Palais de Tokyo, Paris, and the 2015 Venice Biennale.



Contributions Samuel Bianchini artist, professor and director of research group Reflective Interaction EnsadLab, Paris, Céleste Boursier-Mougenot, Jaime DeSimone, Jean-Paul Laumond, Florent Levillain, Emanuele Quinz art historian, curator and lecturer, Benedicte Ramade, Trevor Smith, Elisabetta Zibetti

224 pages, Paperback

Published October 17, 2017

About the author

Samuel Bianchini, an artist and researcher, is Associate Professor at the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs (EnsAD), PSL Research University Paris where he is the head of the "Reflective Interaction" Research Group of EnsadLab, the school's laboratory.