Agoria

Biography

Agoria is the artistic name of Sebastien Devaud, a French electronic music producer, composer, DJ, and multidisciplinary artist born on January 16, 1976, in Lyon. He entered the rave scene in the early 1990s and went on to become one of France's most influential techno producers, releasing acclaimed studio albums including Blossom, The Green Armchair, Impermanence, Drift, and Unshadow, and co-founding the Nuits Sonores festival as well as labels such as InFine and Sapiens Records. Alongside his music career, Devaud has scored soundtracks for films and collaborated with artists including Philippe Parreno and musician Nile Rodgers. Over the past decade, Agoria has expanded his practice from sound into visual and digital art, developing what he calls 'BioGenArt': a practice that merges generative algorithms, real-time data, and artificial intelligence with living biological material and processes. Working directly with neuroscientists, biophysicists, and biologists, he creates installations and digital works that behave like living systems, translating data streams from the body, the brain, or microorganisms into evolving visual and sonic compositions. His landmark project Sigma Lumina, a sculptural work incorporating yeast-based generative growth, was exhibited alongside other biologically driven pieces at the Musee d'Orsay in Paris as part of his 2024 exhibition 'Le Code d'Orsay,' placing his technology-driven practice in dialogue with classical art history. Agoria has also been an early and active participant in the Web3 and NFT space, releasing generative and AI-driven digital collections that extend his BioGenArt philosophy onto the blockchain. Across four decades of music-making and a growing body of digital and bio-based artwork, Agoria's throughline is a fascination with impermanence and transformation, treating technology as a means of revealing the living systems that underlie both nature and culture.