Zimoun

With an interest in Minimalism, space and perception Zimoun works within the fields of sound art, installation, sound sculpture and composition. Using simple and functional components, Zimoun builds architecturally-minded platforms of sound. Exploring mechanical rhythm and flow in prepared systems, his installations incorporate commonplace industrial objects. Zimoun, born in Switzerland in 1977, lives and works in Bern. His work has been presented in solo and group shows as well as performances internationally. Zimoun has been awarded different art prizes and residencies and has served as a guest lecturer. In 2003 Zimoun co-founded Leerraum.net - a platform publishing works which explore forms and structures based on reductive principles and systems. Recent displays of his work include exhibitions at the Museum Haus Konstruktiv Zurich; Museum of Contemporary Art MAC Santiago de Chile; Nam June Paik Art Museum Seoul; Kuandu Museum Taipei; Art Museum Reina Sofia Madrid; Ringling Museum of Art Florida; Mumbai City Museum; National Art Museum Beijing; LAC Museum Lugano; Seoul Museum of Art; Museum MIS São Paulo; Muxin Art Museum Wuzhen; Kunsthalle Bern; Taipei Fine Arts Museum; Le Centquatre Paris; Museum of Contemporary Art Busan; Museum of Fine Arts MBAL; Kunstmuseum Bern; Blackburn Museum; Museum Collection Lambert Avignon; among others. Zimoun is best known for his installative, generally site-specific, immersive works. He employs mechanical principles of rotation and oscillation to put materials into motion and thus produce sounds. For this he principally uses simple materials from everyday life and industrial usage, such as cardboard, DC motors, cables, welding wire, wooden spars or ventilators. For his works Zimoun develops small apparatuses which, despite their fundamental simplicity, generate a tonal and visual complexity once activated – particularly when a large number of such mechanical contraptions, generally hundreds of them, are united and orchestrated in installations and sculptures. In addition to his installative compositions, Zimoun also develops purely acoustic works. Although the two genres – visual, un-controlled, accidental compositions and musical compositions for sound recording and performance that are laboriously constructed in the studio – may seem quite different at first, both emerge from the artist’s interest in creating spaces and acoustic states which are composed of microscopically small sounds and noises. Zimoun’s recordings are often, like the performative concert arrangements, conceived of for multi-channel sound systems. Through the implementation of multiple loudspeakers, listeners are placed within a three-dimensional sonic architecture which cannot be discovered visually, but only acoustically. Zimoun also works on recordings with other artists from music and the visual arts. Many of these recordings have been released by the Leerraum label, as well as on LINE and ROOM40.