Olivier Auber

Olivier Auber (born 1960) is a French independent artist and researcher. He is best known for his project "Poietic Generator" and for having introduced the concept of "Digital Perspective" in the fields of network theory, art, and digital humanities. Olivier Auber was born in 1960 in Sainte-Adresse in Normandy, France. He lives and works in Paris and Brussels. He holds an engineering degree and a Master of Design from the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts et Métiers. His engineering thesis focused on nonlinear optical elements (holograms) for avionics (head-up display). This initial specialization in optics has earned him early in his career as a research engineer, first in the avionics division of Thomson Csf (now Thales Group) and at CERN in Geneva. In 1984, he takes the status of independent consulting engineer for the Cité des Sciences et de l'Industrie (Paris), then under construction, to work first on the development of exhibits, then quickly as project manager responsible for the design and development of several permanent and temporary exhibitions. As such, between 1984 and 1996, he designed the scenario and led the implementation of several highly technological exhibitions and media on science issues as diverse as: the sun, mathematics, electricity, symmetry in the arts and science, non-verbal human behavior, etc. In this period, he also developed some exhibition projects for other cultural institutions, such as the Centre Georges Pompidou, the Institut du Monde Arabe, the Palais de la Découverte. The creation for the "Expressions et behaviours" exhibition inaugurated in early 1987, marked a milestone in his career, leading him from a predominantly scientific and technical culture to another more artistic and open to all components of the humanities. At the end of 1987, while working with Tod Machover (MIT Medialab) and Catherine Ikam (artist) for the staging of VALIS, a contemporary music opera based on the novel by Philip K.