N_RAYSSCULPT_alterHEN_#3

He dedicates himself to music, graphics and the creation of dynamic environments, focusing on real time interactions of images and sounds. His work is protean and focuses on plastic research, placing the individual and new technologies at the heart of the creation process. Since a very young age he took apart, constructed and tinkered with electronic circuits. He plugged his radio set to his pick-up via his mum’s washing machine. He then discovered, without realizing it, the joys of bending circuits. In 1984, the first micro computer, a Oric Atmos, reached his home. The next generations of computers followed until 1986, when the l’ATARI 520STf was created. He discovered MIDI, cubase, rythm boxes and keyboards. After graduating, Laurent La Torpille joined a Control company which led him to travel and to discover the aerospace and nuclear top industries. In 1992, he decided to devote himself entirely to music, graphics and the creation of virtual dynamics. Since then, he never stopped improving his musical and graphic research whilst using his favorite instrument, the Computer. In 1994, he discovered Max, and created his first patches. It is then that he found a way of playing image and sound live. Max/MSP and Nato gave him the possibility of improving his work with sound and image until Max/MSP/Jitter was created. His stage experience led him to reconsider a new way of working with games and the concept of virtual instruments. Laurent La Torpille first used joysticks and other well known tools. He then got interested in movement detection using video cameras, webcams, Kinect and some industrial tools in order to play graphics and music LIVE. Gyroscopes, flexion captors, accelerometers and magnetic captors then became his favourite instruments. He found inspiration in mathematics and physics, whilst modifying them (artificial life simulation, modeling particle physics, etc.). He now performs on stage, creates installations and shows his work in galleries. He collaborates with many artists, musicians, choreographers and theatre directors, moves around and increases his orders. His work gets published in books and reviews of contemporary art. Whilst Laurent La Torpilles’ installations invite the audience’s interaction in a primary ludic manner, the artist, with the interfaces he suggests, also invites us to reflect on the concept of art work and the meaning it takes when we are invited to modify, manipulate and design it in his company. His art work and its modus operandi offer a new approach, a different perception which he wishes to produce, spread and share (digital tools for variable images). This is a typical case of “emergence” in which the observer can figure out new laws and concepts, but cannot apprehend them.