Jocelyn Robert lives and works in Quebec City. The founder of Avatar, a laboratory for the creation, production, and dissemination of sound and electronic art, he is involved in experimentation and production and in the creation of works of art and artistic projects. Working with both sounds and images, he makes installations, sound recordings, videos, radio works, and performances, in addition to writing texts. Over the past few years, he has participated in numerous festivals and events around the world, earning him recognition on the international stage. In 2002, he shared first prize in the new images category at Transmediale in Berlin for his video installation L’invention des animaux (the invention of animals). He holds a master’s degree from Stanford University in California.

Created especially for VOX, Aucune de mes mains ne fait mal (neither of my hands hurt) pursues his experiments with the presence of sounds and images in space and their existence in time. Exploring the tensions between hearing and sight, the installation creates a sound pixilation of two video images that are projected side by side onto translucent screens equipped with photoelectric circuits that transform the light into electronic impulses. This translation transforms the image data into crackling-like sounds and a host of tiny bursts of light, which completely open the installation’s space and temporality. Superimposed on this complex system is La leçon de piano (the piano lesson), Robert’s rendition of a two-part study by Johann Sebastian Bach, played from memory and heard on a series of loudspeakers. To the jerky rhythm of memory’s machinery, the musical movement is slowed down and made irregular and discontinuous, following the fingers that mechanically or hesitatingly work the keys. The exhibition also includes Colville and L’invention des animaux, two works that reflect Robert’s work in video and his thoughts on the image.