About Nola's key

Nola's key

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.

Website

Photos - Portraits

Biography

Graduate of the Master Arts and Digital Technologies at the University of Rennes 2 in 2019, it is following his formation in 2004 at the Institut Supérieur des Techniques du Spectacle (ISTS) in Avignon, that Nicolas joined the team of the Centre Dramatique National de Bretagne in Lorient. There, he worked for 12 years as a lighting director and lighting assistant for numerous directors (Éric Vigner, Arthur Nauziciel, Madeleine Louarn, Christophe Honoré, etc.). as well as touring theatres in France and abroad (Théâtres de l'Odéon, du Rond-Point, de Versailles, Théâtres Nationaux de Strasbourg, de Chaillot, de New-Delhi in India, etc.). He also creates lights for companies and directors in residence such as Chloé Dabert, Tommy Millot or Marc Lainé.

From childhood, in the early 90s, he began to express his musical sensibility through compositions on guitar and synthesizer. After three traumatic years of learning classical guitar in the municipal school of his village, it is as an autodidact that he will pursue his instrumental quest. The democratization of CAM (Computer Assisted Music) in the early 2000s confirmed this choice and opened an exciting path towards DIY and self-production.

In 2005, he launches his artistic project Nola's key which first takes the form of a website on which he gathers and broadcasts his musical compositions, as well as remixes and graphic works. This project progressively evolves towards the creation of live performances combining musical experiments, lighting concepts and video/scenographic works.

In 2006, he created a buzz among Placebo fans by publishing a mashup entitled Vivre son histoire ("Living our story") composed from instrumental samples of the band and an interview in French with singer Brian Molko. Noticed and broadcasted on RTL2 by the host Francis Zégut, the title reaches the band's ears and they decide to use it for the opening sequence of their concerts on the Meds tour.

Since 2007, he has been collaborating with various theatre and contemporary dance companies, including the company Le Pôle, for which he creates the soundtracks for stage creations, as well as the music for certain in situ performances that he performs live.

In September 2016, he resumes a Master's degree in Arts and Digital Technologies at the University of Rennes 2 during which he works under the direction of Bruno Bossis on questions of intermediality and hybridization in stage performance and the performing arts (field of digital performance studies).

Within the framework of this curriculum, he proposes in March 2018 the musical performance Vis Insita using an optical motion capture device to control sound and light through movement. This project will give rise to a paper for the NIME (New Interface for Musical Expression) conference that he will present in June 2019 in Porto Alegre, Brazil.

In spring 2019, he creates the association EGZOA based in Lorient (France, 56) in order to continue this work, to carry the Vis Insita project, and to allow in a general way the creation, the promotion and the diffusion of his artistic projects.

In 2021, he associates with L'Estran in Guidel (France) to set up the WHAT (Workshops Hybridation Arts Technologies), a series of workshops aimed at emulating the creative encounter between artists and technologists in western France.

Dates