Antoine Schmitt (born 1961 in

Strasbourg Strasbourg ( , ; ; ) is the Prefectures in France, prefecture and largest city of the Grand Est Regions of France, region of Geography of France, eastern France, in the historic region of Alsace. It is the prefecture of the Bas-Rhin Departmen ...

) is a

French French may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France ** French people, a nation and ethnic group ** French cuisine, cooking traditions and practices Arts and media * The French (band), ...

visual artist The visual arts are art forms such as painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics (art), ceramics, photography, video, image, filmmaking, design, crafts, and architecture. Many artistic disciplines such as performing arts, conceptual a ...

and

programming Program (American English; also Commonwealth English in terms of computer programming and related activities) or programme (Commonwealth English in all other meanings), programmer, or programming may refer to: Business and management * Program m ...

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who Invention, invent, design, build, maintain and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials. They aim to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while ...

who revolves in the fields of

digital art Digital art, or the digital arts, is artistic work that uses Digital electronics, digital technology as part of the creative or presentational process. It can also refer to computational art that uses and engages with digital media. Since the 1960 ...

and

digital design Digital usually refers to something using discrete digits, often binary digits. Businesses *Digital bank, a form of financial institution *Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) or Digital, a computer company *Digital Research (DR or DRI), a software ...

, especially in the field of the connected objects.

Biography

Programmer

Antoine Schmitt taught himself programming at the age of sixteen on the family computer and was fascinated by its metaphysical and experimental aspects. He obtained his civil engineering degree from

Télécom Paris Télécom Paris (also known as ENST or Télécom or École nationale supérieure des télécommunications ; also Télécom ParisTech until 2019) is a French public institution for higher education (''grande école'') and engineering research. Loc ...

in 1984. He was first a programmer and project manager in the service company Act Informatique between 1985 and 1991, and specialized in the field of

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is the capability of computer, computational systems to perform tasks typically associated with human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and decision-making. It is a field of re ...

and human-machine interactions. He developed tools, carried out missions and conducted research in the fields of

expert system In artificial intelligence (AI), an expert system is a computer system emulating the decision-making ability of a human expert. Expert systems are designed to solve complex problems by reasoning through bodies of knowledge, represented mainly as ...

artificial neural networks In machine learning, a neural network (also artificial neural network or neural net, abbreviated ANN or NN) is a computational model inspired by the structure and functions of biological neural networks. A neural network consists of connected ...

geographic information systems A geographic information system (GIS) consists of integrated computer hardware and software that store, manage, analyze, edit, output, and visualize geographic data. Much of this often happens within a spatial database; however, this is not ...

, and

computer vision Computer vision tasks include methods for image sensor, acquiring, Image processing, processing, Image analysis, analyzing, and understanding digital images, and extraction of high-dimensional data from the real world in order to produce numerical ...

. He collaborated technically with Jacques Serrano on his work ''Cigale'' (1989). From 1991 to 1994, he worked as a programmer for the company

NeXT NeXT, Inc. (later NeXT Computer, Inc. and NeXT Software, Inc.) was an American technology company headquartered in Redwood City, California that specialized in computer workstations for higher education and business markets, and later develope ...

, founded by

Steve Jobs Steven Paul Jobs (February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011) was an American businessman, inventor, and investor best known for co-founding the technology company Apple Inc. Jobs was also the founder of NeXT and chairman and majority shareholder o ...

, specializing in human-machine interfaces for development software (

Project Builder Project Builder was an integrated development environment (IDE) originally developed by NeXT for version 3 of the NeXTSTEP operating system by separating out the code editing parts of Interface Builder into its own application. After Apple Compu ...

) and communication systems (

Mail The mail or post is a system for physically transporting postcards, letter (message), letters, and parcel (package), parcels. A postal service can be private or public, though many governments place restrictions on private systems. Since the mid ...

, distributed persistent messaging systems). He participated in the design and programming of the

OPENSTEP OpenStep is an object-oriented application programming interface (API) specification developed by NeXT. It provides a framework for building graphical user interfaces (GUIs) and developing software applications. OpenStep was designed to be plat ...

environment and created the NSNotificationQueue class, which is still an integral part of

Mac OS X macOS, previously OS X and originally Mac OS X, is a Unix, Unix-based operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 2001. It is the current operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. With ...

to this day. In 1997, Schmitt assisted filmmaker

Chris Marker Chris Marker (; 29 July 1921 – 29 July 2012) (born ''Christian-François Bouche-Villeneuve'') was a French writer, photographer, documentary film director, multimedia artist and Essay#Film, film essayist. His best known films are ''La Jetée' ...

in testing his

CD-ROM A CD-ROM (, compact disc read-only memory) is a type of read-only memory consisting of a pre-pressed optical compact disc that contains computer data storage, data computers can read, but not write or erase. Some CDs, called enhanced CDs, hold b ...

''Immemory''. Between 1996 and 2003, he developed and distributed specialized software bricks (plugins), in particular asFFT Xtra for

Adobe Director Adobe Director (formerly Macromedia Director, MacroMind Director, and MacroMind VideoWorks) was a multimedia application authoring platform created by Macromedia and managed by Adobe Systems until its discontinuation. Director was the primary ed ...

. Between 2001 and 2006, he was a behavioral designer for domestic robotics products for the company

violet Violet may refer to: Common meanings * Violet (color), a spectral color with wavelengths shorter than blue * One of a list of plants known as violet, particularly: ** ''Viola'' (plant), a genus of flowering plants Places United States * Vi ...

(Dal, Dal:Dal,

Nabaztag Nabaztag (Armenian for "hare", նապաստակ (''napastak'')) is a Wi-Fi enabled ambient electronic device in the shape of a rabbit, invented by Rafi Haladjian and Olivier Mével, and manufactured by the company Violet. Nabaztag was design ...

). Since 1995, he has been an independent programmer in the fields of multimedia, human-machine interactions and connected objects, and works with many specialized companies (Hyptique, Virtools,

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

, Incandescence,

, enero,

Kingfisher Kingfishers are a family, the Alcedinidae, of small to medium-sized, brightly coloured birds in the order Coraciiformes. They have a cosmopolitan distribution, with most species living in the tropical regions of Africa, Asia, and Oceania, ...

, Intuis, etc...).

Artist

In 1995, Schmitt began an artistic activity using "programming as the heart of digital aesthetics". in He articulates his work around the notion of artificial being which allows him to approach the human being and the nature of reality in a new way. A pioneer of

generative art Generative art is post-conceptual art that has been created (in whole or in part) with the use of an autonomous system. An ''autonomous system'' in this context is generally one that is non-human and can independently determine features of an ...

, his work is internationally recognized by numerous awards, residencies, exhibitions and concerts. Using programming as an artistic material, he collaborates with many artists from other fields of art (

Franck Vigroux Franck Vigroux is a French musician, composer and media artist. Background Vigroux's artistic approach integrates new media and performing arts. He is a multifaceted artist whose music works range from electro-acoustic and experimental electroni ...

, Atau Tanaka, Vincent Epplay,

Jean-Jacques Birgé Jean-Jacques Birgé (born 5 November 1952) is an independent French musician and filmmaker, at once music composer (co-founder of Un Drame Musical Instantané with which he recorded about 30 albums, as well as for movies, theater, dance, radio), ...

, Delphine Doukhan, K.Danse, Patrice Belin, Don Nino, Cubenx,

Alberto Sorbelli Alberto is the Romance version of the Latinized form (''Albertus'') of Germanic ''Albert''. It is used in Italian, Portuguese and Spanish. The diminutive forms are ''Albertito'' in Spain or ''Albertico'' in some parts of Latin America, Albertin ...

, Matthew Bourne, Hortense Gauthier, etc.). In 1998, he published a manifesto of the work of art on computer which ''positions the computer in itself as a new medium of artistic creation''. In 1995, Schmitt created ''puppetsprite 1'', the first artistic CD-ROM, with

and participated as an author and as technical director of the CD-ROM "Just From Cyntha" by Alberto Sorbelli. In 1999, he co-authored with Vincent Epplay the "infinite CD for unlimited music", the first CD-ROM of generative music. In 2019, he designed deep hormone software for the work CliMax with Hortense Gauthier. Since 2011, he has been the author with the musician

of several audiovisual shows presented around the world (Tempest, Chronostasis, Cascades, ATOTAL, Nacht, Videoscope). In 2021, he created a series of generative and semi-autonomous NFTs. Schmitt develops several software and collaborative platforms in the field of art and social life. In 1997, under the pseudonym Georges Victor, he launched olalaParis, the first distribution list for announcements of artistic events in France. In 2000, he founded the portal gratin.org, Research Group in Art and Interactive and/or Digital Technologies, a reference in programmed art. In 2004, he launched the sonicobject label with Adrian Johnson, a label of creative mobile phone ringtones, bringing together 16 sound artists and more than 200 ringtones, now available under a Creative Commons license. In 2020, during the lockdown, he launched the Manif.app platform (renamed weprotest.xyz in 2024) for anonymous online demonstrations on a shared map. His work ''Vexation 1'' received an honorary mention at the

transmediale Transmediale, stylised as transmediale, is an annual festival for art and digital culture in Berlin, usually held over three to five days at the end of January and the beginning of February. transmediale takes the form of a conference (sometime ...

festival in 2001. In 2007, his work ''Still Living'' received second prize at the same

festival. In 2009, his work Nabazmob, created with

, received second prize at the

Ars Electronica Ars Electronica Linz GmbH is an Austrian cultural, educational and scientific institute active in the field of new media art, founded in Linz in 1979. It is based at the Ars Electronica Center (AEC), which houses the Museum of the Future, in t ...

festival. Schmitt has been represented in Paris by the Galerie Charlot since 2010, and in Berlin by the DAM Projects gallery since 2023.

Awards

* Festival medi@terra (Athens, first prize, 1999) * Möbius Prize (Paris, nominated, 1999) * Festival Interférences (Belfort, first prize, 2000) * Festival transmediale (Berlin, honorary mention 2001) * Vida 5.0 (Madrid, honorary mention, 2002) * Festival International UNESCO de Video-Dance (Paris, first prize, 2002) * Festival machinista (Russie, nominated, 2003) * Festival CYNETart (Dresden, honorary mention, 2004) * Festival transmediale (Berlin, second prize, 2007) * Festival Ars Electronica (Linz, second prize, 2009) * Digital Turku (Turku, FI, honorary mention, 2011) * New Technological Art Award (Bruxelles, nominated, 2012) * Voeux de l’Internet (Issy-les-Mx, FR, E-Toile d’Or category Art, 2012) * Share Festival (Torino, special mention, 2012) * Victor Vasarely (Aix-en-Provence, finalist, 2013) * Stuttgarder Filmwinter Festival (Stuttgard, nominated, 2014) * Bains Numériques Enghien les Bains (Enghien, nominated, 2014) * Screengrab International festival (Townsville, Australia, nominated, 2014) * Kasseler DokFest (Kassel, nominated, 2014) * Media Architecture Biennale 16 (Sidney, Australia, nominated, 2016) * Stuttgart Filmwinter (Stuttgart, nominated, 2018)

References

Selective bibliography

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

External links

* , Schmitt's official website as an artist * , Schmitt's official website as a programmer
Groupe de Recherche en Art et Technologies Interactives et/ou Numériques

sonic()bject

manif.app weprotest.xyz

Gallery Charlot (Paris)

Gallery DAM Projects (Berlin)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Schmitt, Antoine Date of birth missing (living people) 1961 births Living people 20th-century French engineers 20th-century French male artists 21st-century French engineers 21st-century French male artists Artists from Strasbourg French computer programmers French digital artists Télécom Paris alumni