Zimoun : Compilation Video V2.7 | Sound Sculptures & Installations

Zimoun : Sound Sculptures & Installations
Compilation Video V2.7 / Last update: May 2011

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«The sound sculptures and installations of Zimoun are graceful, mechanized works of playful poetry, their structural simplicity opens like an industrial bloom to reveal a complex and intricate series of relationships, an ongoing interplay between the «artificial» and the «organic». It‘s an artistic research of simple and elegant systems to generate and study complex behaviors in sound and motion. Zimoun creates sound pieces from basic components, often using multiples of the same prepared mechanical elements to examine the creation and degeneration of patterns.» Tim Beck

«It is a poetic and humorous absurdity we find in Zimoun’s work, which opens up a wide, refreshing and enriching space for discoveries, associations and a multitude of approaches.» Nina Terry

«Zimoun is best compared to a watchmaker of a self-reproducing time constructing his own gauging station.» Radjo Monk

«The clean, elegant sound sculptures combine visual, sonic, and spatial elements in an organically balanced entirely artwork. Using simple and well- conceived mechanical systems, Zimouns‘s work transforms and activates the space.» Jury Prix Ars Electronica 2010

«Zimoun creates complex kinetic sound sculptures by arranging industrially produced parts according to seemingly simple rules. Using motors, wires, ventilators, etc.., he creates closed systems that develop their own behavior and rules similarly to artificial creatures. Once running, they are left to themselves and go through an indeterminable process of (de)generation.
These quasi autonomous creatures exist in an absolutely synthetic sphere of lifeless matter. However, within the precise, determinist systems creative categorioes suddenly reappear, such as deviation, refusal and transcience out of which complex patterns of behavior evolve.» Node10

«I perceive Zimoun’s work as a unique, playful, light-hearted, and utterly complex approach and examination of the present.» Tom Gray

«The components used in Zimoun’s work are simple, functional and raw, whereas only aesthetically high-level and purposefully chosen elements and materials are used in minimalist fashion. Through radical reduction, Zimoun creates works of art which allow for a plethora of associations without being pinned down to a specific direction. Radical abstraction functions rather like a code in the background of things, thus elegantly avoiding an insinuation of direct, concrete attribution. Thanks to the abundance of mechanical activity, the range of perception, possibilities and interpretations is wide open.» Amanda Neumann

«Indeed, one of the refreshing elements of this work is the immediacy with which one can understand the sound-making process, where each micro-event is present, visible, and concrete. Yet at the same time the resulting complexity of the total system, conjured before your eyes, defies any attempt to dissect it. You might find yourself feeling there is a «prime mover» at work behind the scenes, but in fact it is just the characteristic reaction of materials behaving together and in unison with the space of their activity. A magic of the real.» Xymara

«Minimal yet complex, monotonous yet varying constantly, these sound sculptures develop an uncanny strength.» Markus Spörndli

«Observing Zimoun’s work opens connections to nature and natural phenomena, physics, quantum mechanics, complexity, simplicity, vitality, individuality, evolvement and growth, but also to industrialization, robotics, mass production and social phenomena, to space, architecture, cosmic white noise, phantasms and highly enjoyable experiences popping up at any moment. Art is supposed to activate and focus our attention. Zimoun’s work seems to be a sweeping and beautiful example for this.» Anton Richter

«Zimoun’s primary instruments are entirely of his own making, each a large-scale installation of small mechanical devices — tables lined with whipping little bits of tubing, small sets of fetishistically situated mini- motors. They are architecturally precise and their beauty is forged by that precision. The meticulous engineering of Zimoun’s work is a set- up — not an end unto itself, but a staged step toward its end result, an orderly step enacted so as to let chaos flourish. His chaos takes place in close settings, in carefully defined spaces, in systems as thoroughly considered as a laboratory experiment. And the sound emited by them is not an after effect, or an afterthought. It’s a core principal of his practice.» Marc Weidenbaum