Currently Professor at the School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong, Maurice Benayoun (莫奔,Mo Ben) has been at the forefront of media art for the past three decades. To date, Benayoun has won over 20 international awards in the field of new media art, including the coveted Golden Nica, Ars Electronica, 1998. He has exhibited and curated in some of the world’s most renowned galleries (the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the museums of Contemporary Art in Lyon, Montreal, Seoul etc.), as well as producing collections of large-scale urban installations across East Asia.
As a critical practitioner, Benayoun has consistently prioritised ‘content’. Through his work, Benayoun aims to convey impacting messages concerning socio-political and historical issues, all the while assessing and confronting human capacities and behaviours. As a theorist, Benayoun can be credited with coining the term ‘critical fusion’, the notion that fiction and reality must coalesce in artworks to create a deeper sense of ‘the real’.
As a long-time supporter of other artists in the field, Benayoun curates exhibitions that feature the work of both established and emerging New Media Artists. As a researcher, Benayoun founded the CITU Lab of Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne and Paris 8 universities. He is also the founder and director of the H2H Lab Scientific Interest Group, and is the current leader the R&V research programme at the School of Creative Media.