Biography
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Born
1965 (age 59)
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Born In
Bochum, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany
Thomas Köner is a German musician and multimedia artist. He has recorded several albums, worked with field recordings, and created audiovisual installations that have been exhibited in numerous museums worldwide.
Thomas Köner was born in 1965, attended the music college in Dortmund and studied electronic music at the CEM-Studio in Arnhem. Until 1994 he worked with film sound as sound engineer. He extended his concept of sound colour to moving images, resulting in video installations and film works. 2000 the Montreal International Festival New Cinema New Media awarded him the "New Media Prize". 2004 the Prix Ars Electronica awarded him the "Golden Nica", and he was awarded the "Produktionspreis WDR / Deutscher Klangkunst-Preis" (german sound art award). His media installation "Suburbs Of The Void" received the Transmediale 2005 award in Berlin and was presented at La Biennale di Venezia, Teatro La Fenice as a live performance in the same year. Köners video "Nuuk" received the Tiger Cub Award (best short film) during the International Filmfestival Rotterdam 2005.
While studying, he dedicated himself to intensive sound research in the recording studio. His first impulse consisted in avoiding rhythm and melody and focusing instead on the phenomenon of sound colour. To intensify the experience of sound, he decided to work with other media, resulting at first in the collaboration with film artist Jürgen Reble and the live performance Alchemie (1992). Following this, he started to compose film soundtracks and electronic live music to accompany old silent films for the Louvre Museum and the Musée d'Orsay, Paris. As "Porter Ricks", a collaboration with Andy Mellwig, he became an acclaimed producer of progressive techno, resulting in remix commissions for Nine Inch Nails and a Claude Debussy remix for Universal Music, a.o.
Köner's interest in combining visual and auditory experiences and in extending the effectiveness of his works was conducive to an involvement with the work of other artists like Max Eastley, in which the combination between sound sculpture and performance became central. "List Of Japanese Winds", a collaboration of Max Eastley and Thomas Köner, is an installation piece that was commissioned by the Hayward Gallery, London.
The Rimbaud Museum commissioned Thomas Köner five permanent sound installations for five rooms of the "Maison Rimbaud" in Charleville-Mezières, France. The Centre Georges Pompidou and other museums acquired his audiovisual works for their collection.
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