Sylvain Hourany is an interactive concept designer based in Lyon. He defines his style as an experimental blend of technical expertise and art. His project is rooted in a very personal desire to create a space where people can explore alternative dimensions of reality and change the way they perceive their surroundings. This inaugural multimedia journey will throw them into an unknown, disconcerting world. Sylvain wants to reach out to them and have them touch the intangible. Through his intimist environment, he uses the art of suggestion to destabilize people and make them think.

The site will be interactive, taking the issue of noise in our society as its starting point. It will blend sounds with visual animations. A sound can become an image, and vice-versa. Sylvain’s previous two sites ensured him a conspicuous arrival in the multimedia world. The first was dedicated to the body, and intertwines sociological ideas with poetry (winner of the Artistic Creation Prize at the Valenciennes E-Magician Festival in 2002), and the second involved the presentation of fashion designer Issey Miyake’s 2002-2003 autumn/winter collection.

These two projects convinced him to take the concept further. As a qualified engineer and graduate of the Compiègne School of Art, Sylvain wishes to explore all the artistic possibilities of a medium like the Internet. “Artists are seekers who play with their imagination to touch the boundaries of the impossible, pushing their experiences to the absolute limit,” he explains. He considers himself “a creator of worlds using parts that already exist in reality.” Sylvain doesn’t see any end result for his work; his sole passion is to explore the world of multimedia now and forever.

Achievements since winning the grant
The experimental website dedicated to sound and images he created as his project has been on show at several exhibitions, such as the Urbanism exhibition at the Pace Digital Gallery in New York, in Vancouver, and in the Le Cube digital creation space at Issy-les-Moulineaux. Sylvain also received a special distinction in the form of the Bruno Mrozinski New Media Creation prize at the Clermont-Ferrand Vidéoformes Festival, and he won the Centre Georges Pompidou – Net Art Prize during the 2005 Flash Festival.