Nicolás Spencer

http://www.nicolasspencer.cl/


Nicolás Spencer is a Chilean-Spanish artist and researcher in the area of sound and visual art based between Vienna and Berlin. He was formed as a Forest Engineer in Chile, and followed studies in: Photography, Film studies in the EICTV (Cuba), Main Media Arts in the Universidad de Chile, and holds a Diploma in online and offline Video and Digital Technologies from the Media Centre d´Art iDisseny, Mecad/UNESCO (Spain). In 1996 He founded the first Chilean experimental sound collective TRema. From this moment on he has been realising several concerts and recordings. In 2007 he co-founded the first Media Lab in Chile called “LaMe”, a collective platform for open experimentation, with a new creation concept based on experience and developing theory through practice in the fields of sound art, interactivity, reactivity, sculpture, video, hardware hacking, circuit bending, and web art.

From his beginnings as a Forest Engineer, he realised the gap that exists between Science-Nature, people and the importance to raise awareness with environmental issues. That is why he begins to studied photography and film while remaining concerned about the inefficiency of these for the sensitisation of audiences. Afterwards he studies art and dedicates himself to installations with a marked emphasis on natural elements such as water, wind, electricity, etc.

His artistic work is focused in the creation of situation that plays with expectations, shifting awareness and totally transforming the perception of everyday environments. This environment consider natural, artificial and social systems as one. He develop conceptualisation and production of works with themes related to the materiality and “natural” environments, aesthetic-technologic relationships, territorial phenomenologies and overcoming (or questioning) the traditional categories related to “landscape”. His sound work can be described as a fragmented, decomposed form of sound working with software, vinyl, field recordings and Oscillators he betakes to sound different forms that submit to any form.

In 2015 he commenced studies towards the building of sound installations in extreme natural environments. This is why he travels to the Region of Magallanes and the Chilean Antarctic where he collaborates with different institutions such as the Contemporary Art Museum in Santiago, the Yagána community, the Chilean Navy, WCS and the close collaboration with the archaeologist Dr. Alfredo Prieto In 2017 he travels to Cape Horn the southernmost island in the world to make 888, a sound sculpture. In 2018 he was in charge of an international artistic expedition to Antarctica with a three-year project to identify the Antarctic culture and the implications the white continent’s may hold for the future. In 2020 he is invited to exhibit the results of these researches and works in the Museum of Contemporary Art of Chile, with the aim of immerse the audience in the southernmost part of our planet through a massive sound installation.

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