Thomas Bégin
Crypto-codeur : station mobile
Conversations Montréal | Lyon — Galerie TATOR
Curators—Marthe Carrier and Chloé Grondeau
Thomas Bégin lives and works in Montreal. His work has been presented through events and festivals in France, Mexico, Bulgaria, Germany, the United States, Québec and Canada. He has exhibited his work as solo exhibitions in several artist-run centres and galleries in Québec and Canada, including Eastern Block (Montréal, 2017-2012), Mendel Art Gallery (Saskatoon, 2014), Fonderie Darling (Montréal, 2014), Sporobole (Sherbrooke, 2012), Manif d’art de Québec (2012), Lieu (Québec, 2009), Galerie B-312 (Montréal, 2006-2017), DARE-DARE (Montréal, 2003) and L’Écart (Rouyn-Noranda, 2003).
GALERIE TATOR
A place of diffusion dedicated to the art, design and architecture. Tator’s programming is deliberately oriented towards experimentation, in the sense that it conceives the exhibition as a project, a research or the highlighting of a process. It also privileges the notion of transversality, crossing practices and approaches intentionally. The gallery organizes five exhibitions per year in its space as well as projects outside the walls, in punctual frameworks, such as participation in regional cultural events: Fête des Lumières, Biennale d’art contemporain de Lyon, Biennale ‘Musiques en scène’, Biennale Internationale Design Saint-Etienne, Biennale de l’architecture… as well as long-term projects such as the shared artistic garden l’Ilot d’Amaranthes of Emmanuel Louisgrand (Guillotière district, Lyon 7th quarter ), still standing today in the heart of the Mazagran square, or the Factatory (architect: Philippe Rizzotti), modular architecture housing workshops for artists and designers, installed on a landscaped path of the SNCF, acting as a sculpture park (Jean Macé district, Lyon 7th quarter).
With Crypto-codeur : station mobile, Thomas Bégin proposes a work where the rotation and the clash of the raw materials generate a singular mobile and sculptural ensemble. The installation consists of eight stones suspended by wires, such as mobiles, which strike a central rock, rotating on a motorized rotary platform. This autonomous device is also similar to a noisy musical instrument whose mechanisms allow the production of crystalline sounds, while utilizing the acoustic properties of the exhibition space. In their respective gyration, each of the stones encounters at once the points of friction and the points of lower resistance. Their balance is adjusted according to their mass, their shape and the quality of their surface. A sound composition emerges from this tension and is structured, following a slow game of dynamic equilibrium. Thomas Bégin likes to talk about it as an attempt to transcribe an electronic system, through a deliberately archaic structure, in short; an invitation to an electronic regression.
The works of Thomas Bégin take the form of sound, kinetic and robotic installations made from obsolete audiovisual equipment, recovered musical instruments and electronic waste. His creative process questions various scientific, technical and artistic knowledge from which he develops strategies for the re-appropriation of conventional technologies. Through the activation of his devices, he initiates alternative discourses about these technological tools in the context of the artistic creation. More recently, he has dealt with several of his installations as types of sound "synthesizers" allowing both the production of sounds and noise, as well as the organization of these sounds inside dynamic structures emerging directly from the physical properties of the materials they are made of. His research thus explores different possibilities of sound composition from a plastic and technical mounting specific to sculpture.
CONVERSATIONS MONTRÉAL | LYON
THE ARTISTS – THE VENUES
Philippe Allard – La Factatory
Jean-Pierre Aubé –Tator
Thomas Bégin – Tator
Julie Favreau – La BF15
Isabelle Guimond – Néon
Noémi McComber – Néon
Tricia Middleton – Néon
Guillaume Adjutor Provost – Bikini
IN RESIDENCY
Philippe Allard – La Factatory – du 15 mars au 4 avril 2018
Thomas Bégin – La Factatory – du 8 mars au 31 mars 2018
Julie Favreau – Moly Sabata – du 28 février au 31 mars 2018
Tricia Middleton – Néon – du 22 mars au 4 avril 2018
Conversations. Montréal | Lyon was made possible thanks to the Canada Arts Council, the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, the Conseil des arts de Montréal and the ministère des Relations internationales et de la Francophonie du Québec / Fonds Émérillon de coopération franco-québécoise and the l'Institut français / Ville de Lyon.

Thomas Bégin lives and works in Montreal. His work has been presented through events and festivals in France, Mexico, Bulgaria, Germany, the United States, Québec and Canada. He has exhibited his work as solo exhibitions in several artist-run centres and galleries in Québec and Canada, including Eastern Block (Montréal, 2017-2012), Mendel Art Gallery (Saskatoon, 2014), Fonderie Darling (Montréal, 2014), Sporobole (Sherbrooke, 2012), Manif d’art de Québec (2012), Lieu (Québec, 2009), Galerie B-312 (Montréal, 2006-2017), DARE-DARE (Montréal, 2003) and L’Écart (Rouyn-Noranda, 2003).
GALERIE TATOR
A place of diffusion dedicated to the art, design and architecture. Tator’s programming is deliberately oriented towards experimentation, in the sense that it conceives the exhibition as a project, a research or the highlighting of a process. It also privileges the notion of transversality, crossing practices and approaches intentionally. The gallery organizes five exhibitions per year in its space as well as projects outside the walls, in punctual frameworks, such as participation in regional cultural events: Fête des Lumières, Biennale d’art contemporain de Lyon, Biennale ‘Musiques en scène’, Biennale Internationale Design Saint-Etienne, Biennale de l’architecture… as well as long-term projects such as the shared artistic garden l’Ilot d’Amaranthes of Emmanuel Louisgrand (Guillotière district, Lyon 7th quarter ), still standing today in the heart of the Mazagran square, or the Factatory (architect: Philippe Rizzotti), modular architecture housing workshops for artists and designers, installed on a landscaped path of the SNCF, acting as a sculpture park (Jean Macé district, Lyon 7th quarter).