Bio — Maurice Benayoun (MoBen)

Maurice Benayoun (aka MoBen or 莫奔, born 29 March 1957 in Mascara, Algeria) is a French pioneer, contemporary new-media artist, curator and theorist based in Paris, Hong Kong and Nanjing. His work employs various media, including (and often combining) video, computer graphics, immersive virtual reality, the Internet, performance, EEG, 3D Printing, large-scale urban media art installations, and interactive exhibitions. Often conceptual, Maurice Benayoun’s work constitutes a critical investigation of the mutations in contemporary society induced by emerging or recently adopted technologies.

Video Art and Computer Graphics

Taught in Contemporary and Fine Arts, Benayoun’s practice rapidly moved to photography, video, and computer graphics. In the 1980s, Benayoun directed video installations and short videos about contemporary artists, including Daniel Buren (1983), Jean Tinguely, Sol LeWitt, and Martial Raysse (1985). In 1987, he co-founded Z-A Production (1987–2003), a pioneering computer graphics and Virtual Reality laboratory in France. Between 1990 and 1993, he collaborated with Belgian graphic novelist François Schuiten on Quarxs, the first animation series created using HD computer graphics.

Interactive Art, Virtual and Augmented Reality

In 1993, he received the Villa Médicis Hors Les Murs award for his Art After Museum project. In 1995, he completed The Tunnel under the Atlantic, the first intercontinental virtual reality artwork (“televirtuality”) linking the Centre Pompidou in Paris and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Montreal.

World Skin, a Photo Safari in the Land of War (1997), created with composer Jean-Baptiste Barrière, was awarded the Golden Nica at Ars Electronica 1998, the primary international distinction in interactive arts.

Urban Media Art & Transactional Aesthetics

In 2005, Benayoun initiated the series Mechanics of Emotions, presenting the Internet as the world’s nervous system and collective emotions as a material for a new metaphoric model of the economy (Emotion Forecast, NeORIZON). In 2014, he launched the Open Sky Project in Hong Kong, turning the 70,000 sqm ICC media façade into a public art space and university campus. Since 2016, with Brain Factory and Value of Values, he explores neuro-design, EEG morphogenesis, blockchain reification and AI.

Education, Teaching, and Lectures

Graduating in Fine Arts at Panthéon-Sorbonne and awarded the Agrégation d’Arts Plastiques in 1982, Benayoun taught at Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (1984–2010), where he co-founded the CITU research center. In 2008, he defended his PhD thesis Artistic Intentions at Work: Hypothesis for Committing Art at La Sorbonne with First-Class Honors. Full Professor at the School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong (2012–2023), he relocated to Nanjing University in 2024 as Chair Professor and Head of the Art and Architecture Intelligence Lab (3AIL). He has delivered over 400 keynote and invited lectures worldwide.

Selected Awards & Distinctions

Pioneer of e-Culture Awards, 3rd edition, Latino-America Europa, 2023
Guest Artist of Honor, OPLINEPRIZE, 2022–23
Prix de la critique d’Art, AICA France (Finalist), 2019
Novum Design Awards, Golden Interior Design Award, 2019
World Omosiroi Awards (Finalist), Osaka Knowledge Capital, Japan, 2019
S+T+Arts HORIZON2020, European Commission collaborative grant, 2018
“Maurice Benayoun collection” at INA, CNC & BNF (Bibliothèque Nationale de France), 2014
Prix Ars Electronica Visionary Pioneer of Media Art (Nomination), 2014
Absolut Think Tank Award, Athens, 2012
SACD Award, Interactive Arts, Paris, 2009
Qwartz Digital Art Award, Paris, 2009
e-Toile d’Or, Net Art, Paris, 2005
Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres (Knighthood), French Ministry of Culture, 2000
Winner, Architecture competition with Jean Nouvel, Franklin Roosevelt Station, Paris, 2000
Golden Nica (First Prize, Interactive Art), Ars Electronica Festival, Linz, 1998 (World Skin)
Villa Médicis Hors les Murs Award, French Foreign Office, 1993
1st Prize Artistic Animation, SIGGRAPH Truevision Competition, Las Vegas, 1991

Selected Bibliography

Maurice Benayoun, The Dump, 207 Hypotheses for Committing Art, bilingual (EN/FR), Fyp éditions, 2011, ISBN 978-2-916571-64-5
Timothy Murray, Derrick de Kerckhove, Oliver Grau, Kristine Stiles, Jean-Baptiste Barrière, Dominique Moulon, Jean-Pierre Balpe, Maurice Benayoun Open Art, Nouvelles éditions Scala, 2011, ISBN 978-2-35988-046-5
Peter Weibel & Jeffrey Shaw, Future Cinema, MIT Press, 2003, pp. 472, 572–581, ISBN 0-262-69286-4
Oliver Grau, Virtual Art, from Illusion to Immersion, MIT Press, 2004, pp. 237–240, ISBN 0-262-57223-0
Frank Popper, From Technology to Virtual Art, MIT Press, 2005, pp. 201–205, ISBN 0-262-16230-X
Stephen Wilson, Information Arts: Intersections of Art, Science, and Technology, MIT Press, 2002, p. 705

MoBen in a Nutshell

He invented the 3D CGI series when we were still watching Sesame Street [1]. He dug a tunnel in VR under the Atlantic when we were discovering the World Wide Web [2]. He started the first contemporary art collection in Virtual Reality, when many expected colorful canvases and white marble [3]. He combined VR and AI as a medium when we wanted oil painting [4]. He organized a photo safari in the Land of War [5] to erase the traces of dark memories. He created the first networked exhibition when most of us started neglecting museums [6]. He created 20 fragrances to put the Essence of Contemporary Art into bottles [7] and tried to make music with a dildo [8]. He converted the world’s emotions into musical cocktails [9] and then into luxury products [10]. He transformed the Arc de Triomphe into a monument to Peace [11], Shanghai into QR codes [12], and the façade of the Hong Kong highest tower into a university campus and a public art space [13]. He invited New Yorkers to occupy wall screens [14]. After turning the weather data into the World’s emotion forecast [15], he compared citizens’ emotions to financial stock on a trader’s building façade [16]. He dropped his unfinished projects into a blog [17] that he later defended in La Sorbonne as a doctoral thesis [18]. He presently converts human thoughts into objects [19] and Human Values into tradable tokens [20]. Together with Refik Anadol, he installed two “immigrant” artworks in Barcelona’s streets [21], and gave two robotic arms the ability to play chess in a futile attempt to comprehend human conflicts [22].

[1] Quarxs (Paris, 1991–93)
[2] Tunnel under the Atlantic (Centre Pompidou – MAC Montreal, 1995)
[3] Art After Museum (Paris, 1992)
[4] Is the Devil Curved? (Monte Carlo, 1995)
[5] World Skin, a Photo Safari in the Land of War (Linz, 1997)
[6] The Navigation Room, New Image, New Networks (Paris, 1997)
[7] White Cube, l’Essence de l’Art Contemporain (Paris, 2010)
[8] Dildomatic Opera (Paris, 2010)
[9] Emotion Vending Machine (Berlin, 2006)
[10] Emotion Market (Shanghai, 2005)
[11] Between War and Peace, Arc de Triomphe (Paris, 2008–18)
[12] NeORIZON (Shanghai, 2008)
[13] Open Sky Project, ICC façade (Hong Kong, 2014–2016)
[14] Occupy Wall Screens (New York City, 2012)
[15] Emotion Forecast (Paris, NYC, Seoul… 2011)
[16] E-SCAPE TODAY! (Seoul, 2012)
[17] The Dump (Paris, 2006–2008)
[18] Artistic Intentions at Work, Hypothesis for Committing Art (Sorbonne, 2008–2011)
[19] The Brain Factory (Hong Kong, Seoul, Brisbane… 2016)
[20] Value of Values, Transactional Art on the Blockchain (HK, Seoul, Taipei, Beijing… 2019–2025)
[21] DïaloG, with Refik Anadol (HK, Barcelona, 2021–2022)
[22] Power Chess (HK, Cannes, Berlin, Seoul, Shenzhen, 2021–2023)