Biography
Johannes Girardoni is an Austrian-American multi-media and installation artist. Over the past two decades, Girardoni’s work has been driven by exploring the relationship between matter and light, how that dynamic affects perception, and why combinations of natural and artificial phenomena, including algorithms, can fundamentally shift our experience and understanding of site and space. Girardoni’s diverse works range from purely non-technological – using only base materials such as found wood and wax – to hyper-immersive installations in light and sound that blend artificial and human perception. A primary example of this is Girardoni’s use of sensors and algorithms that allow viewers to hear the sound of light. Girardoni often blurs traditional subject-object relationships by generating reciprocity between viewer and work. Meshing material and virtual content, these orchestrations of light, matter, and data are proposed as occasions to disengage from communication. A central tenet of Girardoni is that the supra-sensory conditions created through his works can act as counterpoints to – and inform a critical discourse about – the influx of mediated realities in modern culture.
Girardoni’s art has been shown in galleries and museums worldwide, including at the 54th Venice Biennale, Italy, the Ludwig Museum, Germany, The Harvard Art Museum, Cambridge, MA, The Austrian Cultural Forum, New York, as well as at TED2014 in Vancouver, British Columbia. More recently, Girardoni presented a survey exhibition titled Sensing Singularity at Lévy Gorvy, London. Girardoni has been featured and reviewed nationally and internationally, including in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The L.A. Times, ArtNews, Art in America, and Sculpture, among others. Girardoni is the recipient of numerous awards, including the 2019 Francis J. Greenburger Award for exceptional merit and contribution to the world of art. Girardoni (born in 1967, Austria) emigrated to Southern California in the early 1980s. The artist studied at Bowdoin College and the M.I.T. Media Lab. Girardoni currently lives and works in Los Angeles, CA.
Since 2013, Harriet Girardoni has collaborated on works and projects to expand the studio’s multidisciplinary approach. Actively cross-pollinating with practitioners from various fields, including scientists, technologists, architects, performing artists, and philosophers, she explores how art can impact humanity’s future through new ways of seeing and being in concert with an ethically grounded evolution of sensory technology. Harriet Girardoni holds a BA in Fine Art and Psychology from Wellesley College and an MA in Clinical Psychology from Pepperdine University.
In-situ Art + Architecture
The studio’s work in the built environment explores a hybridization of art and architecture to amplify the experience of self and site. In collaborations with architects, Harriet and Johannes Girardoni’s method advocates for site-specific art to underpin the architectural design process. Their approach leans on the idea of “art before architecture.” The Girardonis’ focus is on formulating a conceptual art program in which the art magnifies the sensory activation of the site and the architecture. Compressing art and the built environment creates opportunities to blend the physical and the ephemeral, which amplifies visitors’, residents’, and participants’ experience of place.
Harriet and Johannes Girardoni’s art in architecture collaborations have ranged from master planning site-specific art programs in large projects to in-situ installations in residential work. They have worked with world-renowned architects, including Tom Kundig, EYRC, Rick Joy, and Kulapat Yantrasast/WHY.
Chromasonic
In 2019, Johannes Girardoni and Harriet Girardoni formed Chromasonic with sound artists, musicians, and composers Orpheo McCord and Joel Shearer. Chromasonic is an arts + research lab that creates sites for immersive light and sound experiences to foster wellbeing. In Chromasonic’s synesthetic environments, participants see sound and hear color to inspire expanded awareness and connection. The melding of sensory modalities blurs boundaries between physical and perceived realities, suspending participants in a radical state of presence. Chromasonic is conducting neuroscientific research to illuminate the emotional, cognitive, physiological, and neurological effects of Chromasonic Refrequencing on participants. Chromasonic believes in the potential of the arts as a catalyst to harmonize mind and body and is building a network of temporary and permanent sites to support a sensory practice for wellbeing. Chromasonic’s first permanent site open to the public is “Satellite One” in Venice, California.