About

Short Biography

Olivia Louvel is an Ivor Novello-winning composer and artist whose work is presented in the form of sound recordings, sound art installations, video art, and live performances. She often operates at the border of documentation and creation, unearthing narratives, the fossilised trees on the Lincolnshire coast in ‘doggerLANDscape’, the writings of Mary Queen of Scots in ‘Data Regina’, and an archival tape by Barbara Hepworth in ‘The Sculptor Speaks’. Her work has been presented in galleries, Middlesbrough Art Week, Towner Eastbourne, Phoenix Art Space, The Hepworth Wakefield, De La Warr Pavilion, ONCA gallery, IKON gallery, in music venues, Chapter Arts Centre, IKLECTIK, Brighton Dome, King’s Place, and on the radio on BBC Radio 3 Late Junction, New Music Show, BBC Radio 6 Freak Zone, and Resonance Extra. Her research has been supported by The Henry Moore Foundation, and the Arts Council of England. She is a member of Sound Art Brighton.

Long Biography

Olivia Louvel is a French-born British composer and artist whose work draws on voice, computer music, and digital narrative. Her practice is built upon a long-standing exploration of the voice, sung or spoken, and its manipulation through digital technology as a compositional method. Her work is presented in the form of sound recordings, sound art installations, video art, and live performances. Louvel often operates at the intersection of creation and documentation, unearthing narratives.

The outcome of her practice is increasingly hybrid at the interface of voice and sculpture, ranging from applying principles of sculpture to carve the voice of Barbara Hepworth, working in sound art with miniature speakers to conceive generative sound murals, 3D printing her voice for a series of 'VoiceScape', and testing the relationship of voice and sculpture acoustically within Lukas Kühne’s site-specific sound sculpture ‘Tvísöngur’ in Iceland.

Installation works include: ‘LOL’ (2022), a site-specific sonic intervention reflecting the current state of political affairs in Britain, delivered through the public address system of Middlesbrough’s CCTV surveillance network; ‘Doggerland Channels’ (2022), a generative sound relief based on the ancient land which once linked Britain to the continent, premiered at Phoenix Art Space for Sound Art Brighton, and reinstalled at Middlesbrough Art Week, 2023;  and ’The Whole Inside’ (2019), a generative sound mural exploring the violent misogyny of the Incels.

Throughout her extensive research on Barbara Hepworth [also called Hepworth Resounds], she produced ‘The Sculptor Speaks’ (2020), an electroacoustic resounding of a Barbara Hepworth archival tape, which was premiered on Resonance Extra and followed by an audio-visual version presented at The Hepworth Wakefield in 2021, and at Towner in 2023. ‘SculptOr’ is a suite of nine pieces based on Hepworth’s writings.

Other compositional and audio-visual works include: ‘doggerLANDscape’ (2023), a video art on the submerged forest of Doggerland; ‘Not A Creature Of Paper’ (2019), a Louise Labé-inspired composition for avant-garde ensemble Juice Vocal, premiered at Kings Place; ’Data Regina’ (2017), a multimedia suite based on Mary Queen of Scots’ writings through an interactive digital platform - Arts Council funded; and ‘Afraid of Women’ (2016), an audio-visual piece raising awareness for Rojava, the autonomous zone in Northern Syria.

Olivia Louvel is a PhD candidate (2021-) working across the Fine Art and Sound departments at the University of Brighton, investigating the interplay of voice and sculpture. Previously, she completed an MA in Digital Music and Sound Art from DMSA, University of Brighton. Her research on resounding the voice of Barbara Hepworth brought her to deliver a talk for the Yorkshire Sound Women Network and the Hepworth Research Network (2021). Leonardo Music Journal, MIT Press published her article ’A Generative Sound Mural, The Whole Inside: Sounding the Body’ (2020). ‘The Whole Inside’ is published in the ‘Aesthetica Art Prize Anthology: Future Now.’ In 2023, she was an artist-in-residence at Skaftfell Visual Art Center, Seyðisfjörður, Iceland, to investigate Lukas Kühne's sound sculpture Tvísöngur, with support from a research grant by the Henry Moore Foundation.

Awards include an Ivor Novello Award for Best Sound Art at the Ivors Classical Awards 2023 (‘LOL’), the Henry Moore Foundation Research and Travel Grant (2022), a nomination for an Ivor Novello Award in the Sound Art category at the Ivors Composer Awards 2020 (‘The Sculptor Speaks’), a Longlist selection at the Aesthetica Art Prize 2021 (‘The Whole Inside’), an Arts Council England Developing Your Creative Practice Award (2021), Norman Cook Digital Music and Sound Arts Breakthrough Award University of Brighton 2018, Arts Council of England Grant for the arts (‘Data Regina’, 2016 and Beauty Sleep, 2014), Prix Ars Electronica shortlist (‘ō, music for haiku’, 2013), and the Qwartz Album Award at the Qwartz Electronic Music Awards 2011 (‘Doll Divider’).

Her work has been featured in The Wire, The Quietus, Electronic Beats, Fact Mag, and Electronic Sound, among others, and she was interviewed by Stuart Maconie for his BBC Radio 6 programme about her “compelling sculpture-inspired work” on Barbara Hepworth. Louvel has received extensive airplay on significant radio programs such as BBC Radio 3’s Late Junction, BBC Radio 6’s Freak Zone, Resonance, RTE Lyric FM’s Nova, Radio Eins’s Elektro Beat, NRK’s Harald Are Lund, RTVE Radio 3’s Fluido Rosa, RTVE Radio 3’s Atmosfera, RAI 3’s Battiti, and France Musique’s La Matinale. She produced a mix for Electronic Beats /EB radio (2014).

She has presented her work at Towner (Eastbourne, 2023); Middlesbrough Art Weekender (2023, 2022); Phoenix Art Space (2022); The Hepworth Wakefield (2021); Chapter Arts Centre (Cardiff, 2020); King’s Place (London, 2019); De La Warr (Bexhill, 2019); Ikon Gallery (Birmingham, 2018); Anthony Burgess Foundation (Manchester, 2018); Spirit of Gravity (Brighton, 2017); NAWR, BBC Hall (Swansea, 2017); ONCA gallery, Brighton Digital Festival, (Brighton, 2018); Iklectik (London, 2019); CTM, Kunstquartier Bethanien (Berlin, 2016); Le Cube (Issy-Les-Moulineaux, 2017, 2009); Earsthetic Festival, Brighton Dome (Brighton, 2013); Ososphere Festival (Strasburg, 2009).

In 2018, she toured throughout the UK, presenting a headline audio-visual set of ‘Data Regina’ for ‘Synth Remix’, an event curated by Benjamin Tassie under Sound and Music's Composer-Curator scheme. Louvel has also opened for artists such as Eartheater at De La Warr Pavilion, Japanese avant-garde artist Phew at IKlectik, Planningtorock at Earsthetic Festival/ Brighton Dome, and Recoil for various shows on the European Selected tour (2010).

Louvel has been an active member of female:pressure, the international network of female, transgender, and non-binary artists in electronic music and digital arts. She took part in the compilation in support of Pussy Riot’s freedom (2013) and the female:pressure campaign - curated by Antye Greie-Ripatti - to raise awareness for Rojava (2016). She has contributed as data collection helper to the female:pressure FACTS gender survey that quantifies the gender distribution of artists.

She has been associated with the label Optical Sound Records and Fine Arts, run by French artist Pierre Beloüin, notably with the release of Lulu In Suspension (OS, 027, 2008), the sonic cruise Echos Flottants (Ososphere Festival, 2009, with Paul Kendall and Black Sifichi) and Acoustic Cameras (Le Cube, 2017, with Paul Kendall).

Press

:interviews:

‘Fifteen Questions Interview with Olivia Louvel. A Solitary Introvert’, Fifteen Questions, [online], January 2021, https://www.15questions.net/interview/fifteen-questions-interview-olivia-louvel/page-1/

‘Stuart chats to digital sound artist Olivia Louvel about a new compelling sculpture-inspired work’, Stuart Maconie’s Freak Zone, BBC Radio 6, 02 February 2020, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000dz

a modern digital composer who has a fascinating new project on the sculptures and voice of Barbara Hepworth (…) Data Regina was a brilliant interwoven tales from British History.

‘Synth Remix - Interview with Olivia Louvel’, Classical Remix, [online video], 6 November 2018, https://vimeo.com/296959992

‘Sampling Stories Vol. 14: Olivia Louvel’, Hannes Liechti, Norient, [online], 10 February 2018, https://norient.com/blog/sampling-stories-vol-14-olivia-louvel/

It was early 2016 when female:pressure launched their Rojava campaign. With a bundle of tracks, a Bandcamp compilation, videos, discussions, and more, the international network of female, transgender, and non-binary artists in the fields of electronic music and digital arts aimed to raise awareness around the resistance movement taking place in the cantons of Rojava in Northern Syria. Here, we meet sound artist Olivia Louvel who has done an audiovisual piece for this project.

‘Humanity Colliding with Machine – Lisa Busby in conversation with Olivia Louvel’, Benjamin Tassie, The Sampler, [online], 3 January 2018, https://thesampler.org/guest-editor/humanity-colliding-machine-lisa-busby-conversation-olivia-louvel/

‘Multiple Media: Olivia Louvel On Music, Art & 16th Century History’, DJ Pangburn, The Quietus, [online], 9 May 2017, http://thequietus.com/articles/22355-olivia-louvel-interview

But for the long-gestating project that would become the new album, Data Regina, Louvel gradually decided to explore new media art forms like web art and 3D animation in telling the story of her infiltration of the lives of and conflict between Mary Queen of Scots and Queen Elizabeth.

‘5 minutes with... Award-winning electronic musician Olivia Louvel on headlining an all-female SPECTRUM special’, Brighton Dome Blog, [online], 13 November 2015 ,https://brightondome.org/news_blog/5_minutes_witholivia_louvel/

:features/reviews:

‘The Sculptor Speaks’, Deborah Nash, The Wire, [print], October 2020, issue 440, p.90, https://reader.exacteditions.com/issues/89752/page/90

Louvel exploits the rhythm of Hepworth's words, releasing the voice recorded from its original location in St Ives and allowing it to swim across time to a different century. The sculptor's cut-glass Received Pronunciation might be off-putting for the modern ear, but waves of technological manipulation have eroded its edges, turning it into a dreamy meditation on the nature of creativity.

‘Olivia Louvel SculptOr [Hepworth Resounds]’, Antonio Poscic, The Quietus, 10 March 2020 , https://thequietus.com/articles/27903-sculptor-hepworth-resounds-olivia-louvel-review

There is something unequivocally human in Louvel’s work, centred around the voice and its manipulations” (...) “Armed with an algorithmic chisel and mallet, Louvel repurposes writings by the late English sculptor Barbara Hepworth” (...) “SculptOr is a highly conceptual and meta-referential piece, a sort of meditation on artistic practices.

‘The Doctor Who theme and beyond: female pioneers of electronic music’, Nature, [print & online], 16 November 2018, https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-07439-1

Louvel’s multimedia suite Data Regina liberates the voice of another woman from the past. Tudor monarch Mary, Queen of Scots — ultimately executed by her cousin, Elizabeth I of England — was a prolific writer and poet. Yet few know her works. Louvel’s voice, computer music and a video backdrop of avatars that look like chess pieces transmit the story of the tortured queen. The result is a soaring, gut-wrenching opera.

‘Game of Thrones. A multimedia suite by composer Olivia Louvel digs deep into the psychic warfare between two 16th century British Queens’, Abi Bliss, The Wire, [print], issue 396, p.14, February 2017

A multimedia suite by composer Oliva Louvel digs deep into the psychic warfare between the 16th century British Queens. (…) Between the paintings adapted from fashion magazines that inspired 2011's Doll Divider and the reimagining of Louise Brooks's bobbed femme fatale for 2008's Lulu In Suspension, the iconography of femininity has been a rich source of material for the French born, Sussex based producer and visual artist to rip apart and papier mâché back into brooding electronic pop. (…) The refined melodies of Louvel's intimate vocals and Fiona Brice's lyrical violin stand in fragile opposition to a backdrop, based largely around processed tambour samples, of harsh percussive rolls and looming reverberations. It evokes not only the brutality of the battles that peppered the UK in the 16th century but the sense of surveillance and paranoia that both women must have experienced.

‘female:pressure release Rojava Revolution compilation for International Women’s Day’, April Clare Welsh, Fact Mag, [online], 8 March 2016, https://www.factmag.com/2016/03/08/female-pressure-bandcamp-compilation-iwd2016/

’Is the Islamic State ‘Afraid of Women’?’, Electronic Beats, [online], 20 February 2016, https://www.electronicbeats.net/the-feed/is-the-islamic-state-afraid-of-women/

Producer Olivia Louvel has contributed a moving audio-visual project to #Rojava, a female:pressure campaign curated by Antye Greie-Ripatti that aims to show solidarity and raise awareness for a special de facto autonomous zone in northern Syria.

 ‘EB Radio Presents Olivia Louvel’, Electronic Beats, [online], December 2014, https://www.electronicbeats.net/podcast/eb-radio-presents-olivia-louvel/