# Maurice Benayoun

Maurice Benayoun (aka MoBen or 莫奔) (born 29 March 1957) is a French new-media artist, curator, and theorist based in Paris and Hong Kong.
His work employs various media, including video, computer graphics, immersive virtual reality, the Internet, performance, EEG, 3D Printing, large-scale urban media art, robotics, NFTs, and Blockchain based artworks, installations and interactive exhibitions.

## Early life

He was born in Mascara, Algeria, in March 1957, as a war orphan. His father was killed before his birth in the Algerian independence war. He moved to France in 1958, following his mother and his brother, to live in popular suburbs in north Paris where the family stayed during most of his childhood.

## Education

Bennayoun's doctorate thesis at the Sorbonne, Artistic Intentions at Work, Hypothesis for Committing Art, was published in 2011.

## Career

Benayoun taught in contemporary and fine arts at Pantheon-Sorbonne University. In 1987 he co-founded Z-A Production (1987–2003), a computer graphics and virtual reality private lab.
Between 1990 and 1993, Benayoun collaborated with Belgian graphic novelists François Schuiten and philosopher Benoît Peeters on Quarxs, the first animation series made of HD computer graphics, exploring variant creatures with alternate physical laws.
For his first solo show, Benayoun presented a virtual reality installation linking two art museums: the Pompidou Center in Paris and the Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal. Benayoun conceived and directed the exhibition Cosmopolis, Overwriting the City (2005), an art and science immersive installation presented during the French Year in China in Shanghai, Beijing, Chengdu, and Chongqing. This was Maurice Benayoun's first experience in China, and the reception by the public played an important role in later Benayoun's move to Asia.

### Key concepts

Open Media, in 2000, considered his works as a form of Open Media Art, paraphrasing Jon Ippolito, not limited to the traditional forms, media and economic schemes of art, but also not necessarily based on a specific medium, digital or using technologies. Open takes here the sense of freedom in the means of expression.
Infra-realism – (Infra-realisme in French, could be interpreted as 'sub-realism') was coined in the early 90s to describe the specificity of the new form of realism emerging from 3D computer graphics. During the production of Quarxs (1989–1993), the author, Benayoun wanted to identify the difference between visual realism based on the transcription of how the world reflects light, and what he called Infra-realism, or "realism of the depth" or "the deep realism behind the surface".

## Selected awards

* Prix Ars Electronica Visionary Pioneer of Media Art (nomination), 2014
* SACD Award, Interactive Arts, Paris, June 2009
* Golden Nica (first prize), interactive art category, ARS ELECTRONICA Festival, Linz, Austria, 1998
* Jose Abel Prize, Best European animation film, Cinanima, Animation Film Festival of Espinho, Portugal, October 1994
* Best Electronic Special Effects, International Monitor Awards, Los Angeles, 1993
* Best Video Paint Design, International Monitor Award, Los Angeles 1993
* First Prize Pixel INA, Opens Title category Imagina '93, Monte Carlo, February 1993
* First Prize, Third Dimension Award, SCAM, Paris, November 1991
* 1st Prize, Artistic Animation category, Truevision competition, SIGGRAPH, Las Vegas, 1991