Tarek Atoui was born in Lebanon in 1980 and moved to Paris in 1998 where he studied contemporary and electronic music at the French National Conservatory of Reims. He worked in the Netherlands as co-artistic director of the STEIM Studios in Amsterdam in 2008 and has released his first solo album on the esteemed Mort Aux Vaches series of the Staalplaat label (Amsterdam/Berlin).
Atoui is an electro-acoustic musician who initiates and curates multidisciplinary interventions, events, concerts and workshops in Europe and the Middle East. He builds new software for each project he works on and specializes in creating computer tools for interdisciplinary art forms and youth education.
He has played and performed at many contemporary art events and festivals in the Middle East and Europe such as the Today’s Art Festival (the Hague), Club Transmediale (Berlin), The Sharjah Biennial (UAE) the New Museum (new-York), and is currently the artist in residency at the Sharjah Art Foundation that has been closely following his work since 2008.
Much of Atoui’s work references the social and political and presents electronic music and new technologies as powerful tools of expression and identity. A major and pioneering project of this nature was the youth dedicated Empty Cans workshop that took place in France, Holland, Lebanon Egypt and recently at the New Museum in New York.
