Biographie

Semiconductor, a duo of English artists formed in 1997 by Ruth Jarman and Joseph Gerhardt, realises videos, musical compositions, installations and performances. Initially interested in sound creation, the duo quickly turned to the image as well with their Sound Films, short videos playing on the relationships between sound and image. Since 1999 Semiconductor has been exploring digital animation and the different methods of image and sound processing resulting from it. Image and sound are subject to the same technological experiments, with the sound at the origin of the appearance of the image. Indeed, the sound acts directly on the image, controlling, directing and transforming it. The images thus become the visual pendant of the sound composition.
The subjects of these digital animations include landscapes, architecture, geology, geography, chaos, systems theory and artificial intelligence. In their installation Earth Moves (2006), for example, geographical landscapes become sound landscapes modelled by digital images.
Through the use of digital processes, Semiconductor seeks to go beyond the limits of time, scale and natural forces in order to reveal the physical flows of the world. By exploring what exists beyond human experience, the two artists question the very nature of existence. While similar to a scientific study, their approach assumes a poetic dimension through the use of image and sound.

Priscilia Marques
Translated by Miriam Rosen