Olivier Nijs

(1971, The Netherlands) Started making Music at age 9 playing the piano. Later he played clarinet and saxophone. During his arteducation at the Mollerinsitute in Tilburg and Ateliers Arnhem he became fascinated by sound and the way human beings perceive sound. Since that time he started his first explorations in recording and editing sounds of his daily life. At first with analog tape decks, later he mainly used computers.

In his time at Ateliers Arnhem (post –graduate year) the concept of the “Acoustic Cinema” was developed.
For this concept he developed the “Olyfoon”. A redesigned organ was used to communicate with 15 little cassette players and four reel to reel players. These devices were placed in a room so the audience could walk through and make their own mix of the performances. The limited synchronising possibilities provided a continuous changing composition. These sounds where mixed with live performance and sound effects.

In 2001 I was invited to take part in a dance music project called E-Quad. This  group made music which was a mix of Worldmusic, jazz and drum’n bass. With this group a tour to South Africa was made. During this tour we worked with Louis Mhlanga, McCoy Mrubata and others. The first album, Tone+Tune+Tempo was released in 2005. In 2006 I left the band for artistic reasons.

2004-2005 I took part in a multidisciplinary (music, dance, video and art)theatre project called Eyeing P. P. by Eric van der Westen. An experimental project about the life and work of Pablo Picasso. During the performances an atmosphere of a live studio was created in which the works evolved. All music was played and improvised live.
As sound designer I was a member of Quadrant Extended during the Rotterdam International Jazz festival. This band was a crossover between a jazz bigband with electronics.

Since 2006 I am mostly working on my own sound art projects. After a period of mainly programming and developing software for my ‘Noiseshaper” application I created several works about time perception and manipulation.
The “Tunnelproject” was the first project in public space.
The “Nothing Satisfies” project was some sort coincidence during a test recording for the Noiseshaper. In need for a long recording some field recordings were made. These recordings appeared to be very intriguing. Later in the project the recordings were made in surround to give them a more natural feeling and also a way to really get in the sound without the need for a lot of loudness.
At the moment the main project is “We are all Passengers” which handles about our changing environment without us knowing. The irony lies in the fact that we do know that our environment is changing but we are not able to perceive these changes. The basis of the work is a recording of a boat trip of 15 hours which is used create a 20 minute performance. For this piece daylight simulation will be a prominent part of the work.

More about Olivier Nijs at www.oliviernijs.nl (in dutch)