Thomas Bégin

Thomas Bégin makes machines “to live in” and contraptions to “make sound”—mechanical devices and installation prototypes that imitate technical and technological systems, which he diverts from their usual function. In thus playing on appropriation, he exploits the contiguities and gaps that emerge between the model and the copy. His autonomous and efficient machines generate compositions by mobilizing the physical properties of sound, geometries, and materials in order to rethink certain cultural standards. Bégin is a multidisciplinary artist whose installations, drawings, and sound machines have been shown at exhibitions and festivals in France, Mexico, Bulgaria, Germany, the U.S., and Quebec and Canada, including the Darling Foundry (Montreal, 2014), Sporobole as part of the Espace [IM]Média event (Sherbrooke, 2013), Manif d’art 6 (Quebec City, 2012), Elektra (Montreal, 2011 and 2008), and activities organized by Les Impatients. He lives and works in Montreal.