NOLA'S KEY
Are we still where we find ourselves?
Nola's key is not a pseudonym. It is not the name of a band, a company or an organization. It is not an official or professional entity, nor an amateur project.
Nola's key is perhaps an expression of this refusal. The refusal of what should be, where it should be. Even if the road is longer.
A space then, but out of the space, as there can be times out of the time.
An undefined place of experimentation, expression, reflection, imagination, invention, infinite exploration. A vast expanse, like a desert, like the sea. An immense place, a life, a fractal, a planet, as far as the eye can see, where we often get lost, and yet, despite ourselves, where we find ourselves.
Initiated in 2005 by Nicolas Bazoge, inspired by scientific and philosophical literature, listening to the world and its mutations, with the great human questions as a backdrop, Nola's key invites curiosity with the wish to connect ideas, beings and arts through a creative use of technologies.
It is at the crossroads, with total creative freedom, that Nola's key draws its substance.
An enigmatic, dark and cinematographic universe to which only Nola has the key.
Nicolas Bazoge
Fascinated by the enigmatic poetry of complex systems, chaos theory or synesthesia, artistic creation is for him a remedy to our inaccessible quest to understand the world.
The exploration of the creative possibilities of technology in the performing arts and the desire to interconnect different artistic disciplines are at the heart of his reflections.
His activities are dedicated to the conception of semi-improvised stage performances and hybrid light and sound devices.
In parallel to his projects within Nola's key and his association EGZOA, he regularly collaborates with other companies and musicians as a light creator, visual artist and light scenographer.
Biography
Graduating from the Master Arts and Digital Technologies program at Rennes University (France) in 2019, Nicolas Bazoge studied at the Institut Supérieur des Techniques du Spectacle (ISTS) in Avignon in 2004, before joining the creative team at the Centre Dramatique National de Bretagne (CDDB) in Lorient, where he worked for 12 years as a head of electrician and lighting designer. He has worked with directors such as Éric Vigner, Arthur Nauzyciel, Madeleine Louarn and Christophe Honoré, as well as touring theaters in France and abroad (Théâtre de Versailles, Odéon, Rond-Point, Théâtres Nationaux de Chaillot, Strasbourg and New-Delhi in India). He designs lighting for directors such as Marc Lainé, Chloé Dabert and Tommy Millot.
At the same time, in 2005, he developed his personal artistic project Nola's key, which initially took the form of an animated website on which he broadcast musical compositions, remixes and graphic works.
In 2006, he created a stir among PLACEBO fans with the release of the mashup Vivre son histoire, composed from instrumental samples of the band and an interview in French of singer Brian Molko. Noticed and broadcast on RTL2 french radio by host Francis Zégut, the track caught the ear of Placebo, who decided to use it for the opening sequence of their Meds tour concerts.
Nola's key gradually evolved into the creation of live performances in which he experimented with the artistic possibilities of real-time interaction between music, light and movement.
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From 2007, he collaborated with various local theater and contemporary dance companies, for which he created the lighting and sometimes the music, most of which he performed live.
In September 2016, he left the CDDB to take up a Master's degree in Arts and Digital Technologies at Rennes University, during which he worked on hybridization in stage performance and the living arts (field of digital performance studies).
As part of this curriculum, in March 2018 he initiated the musical and visual performance Vis Insita implementing a motion capture device to control sound and light through movement. This project gives rise to a scientific publication for the NIME (New Interface for Musical Expression) international conference, which he presents on site in Porto Alegre, Brazil, in June 2019.
In spring 2019, he created the EGZOA association, based in Lorient (56), to pursue his research, support the Vis Insita performance, and generally enable the creation, promotion and dissemination of his projects.
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In 2021, he joined forces with the L'Estran theater in Guidel (France) to set up WHAT (Workshops Hybridation Arts Technologies), a series of workshops designed to emulate the creative encounter between artists and technologists in western France.
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In 2022, he became an associate artist of the HACNUM national network for hybrid arts and digital cultures, and initiated the Spectral _ink creative project.
Main dates
2020
Vis Insita - Musical, visual and kinetic performance
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2019
Creation of the association EGZOA
2018
Vis Insita (Principe) - Musical, visual and kinetic performance
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2016
../MUTE (with video mapping et scenography)
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2015
e-Vox - Musical performance and participatory verbal experimentation
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2014
../MUTE - Multi-instrumental performance alone on stage
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2012
Wondergen - Autoproduced album
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2010
Insides - First live concept of Nola's key
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2008
Metting with Katell Hartereau and Léonard Rainis from the contemporary dance company Le pôle.
Composition of soundtracks and live performances
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2006
Vivre son histoire - Mashup used by the rock band Placebo for the openning sequence of their concerts on the Meds tour.
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2005
Creation of Nola's key
Realization of an animated website now inaccessible following the stop in December 2020 of the development of the Adobe Flash plugin.