VAST: Visiting Artist & Scholar Talks

Alberto Novello a.k.a. JesterN’s practice repurposes found or decontextualised analogue devices to investigate the connections between light and sound in the form of contemplative installations and performances. He repairs and modifes tools from our analogue past: oscilloscopes, early game consoles, analogue video mixers, and lasers. He is attracted to their intrinsic limitations and strong ‘personalities’: fuid beam movement, vivid colors, infnite resolution, absence of frame rate, and line aesthetics. By using these forgotten devices, he exposes the public to the aesthetic diferences between the ubiquitous digital projections and the vibrance of analogue beams, engaging them to refect on the sociopolitical impact of technology in a retrospective on technologisation: what ‘old’ means, and what value the ‘new’ really adds.

His productions in form of performances, talks, papers and compositions have been presented at Centre Pompidou in Paris, Museo Reina Sofa Madrid, Ars Electronica Linz, Amsterdam Dance Event, Venice Biennale, National Art Museo of Lima, New York Computer Music Festival, Bozar Bruxelles, BOA Biennale Porto, Rewire Festival Den Haag, Glasgow Contemporary Art Center, National Art Museum Buenos Aires, Dom Moskow, Seoul International Music Festival, Imagen Festival Colombia, Rome University of Fine Arts, to mention a few. He has released records for Staalplat, Bowindo, Elli Records, Dobialabel, Setoladimaiale, Ante-Rasa and Creative Sources.

He graduated in Nuclear Physics at the University of Trieste, completed the master Art Science Technologies with Jean Claude Risset, obtained a PhD degree at the Technische Universiteit Eindhoven with Armin Kohlrausch, and graduated in Electronic Music at the Institute of Sonology, Royal Conservatory of Den Haag. He worked for Texas Instruments, Philips Research, and Auro Technologies creating sofware for their audio applications.