Olivier Nijs's Page

Started playing the piano at the age of 9. Later he played clarinet and saxophone. During his art education at the Mollerinsitute in Tilburg and Ateliers Arnhem he became fascinated by everyday sounds and the way human beings perceive them. Since that time he started his first explorations in field recording and editing sounds of his daily life.

During his time at Ateliers Arnhem (post–graduate year) the concept of the “Acoustic Cinema” was developed. For this concept he developed the “Olyfoon”. A redesigned organ was used to communicate with 15 little cassette players and four reel to reel players. These devices were placed in a room so the audience could walk through and make their own mix of the performances. The limited synchronising possibilities provided a continuous changing composition.

From 2001 he was involved in several music projects from jazz to dance. In this projects he was mainly focussing on sampling and sequencing field recordings and synthprogramming.

Since 2006 he is mostly involved in his own sound art projects. These conceptual projects most of the time are about time and time perception. Several time-lapse software applications were developed to realise extreme time manipulations. After that came the first public space project called “Tunnel”.
The “Nothing Satisfies” project was some sort coincidence during a test recording for the Noiseshaper. In need for a long recording some field recordings were made. These recordings appeared to be very intriguing. Later in the project the recordings were made in surround to give them a more natural feeling and also a way to really get immersed in the sound.
Since his “We are all passengers” project the focus of the concepts of his work shifts more toward changes and the effect you have as a recordist in the field on the field itself.

Besides his artistic work he is involved in the artist initiative Whatspace (www.whatspace.nl), organizing several expositions and performances.