John-Robin Bold

Hi, thanks for your interest in my work. I'm both a composer of experimental music and an internet artist. Please find below a list of my website-specific activities. For access to my musical works on Mille Plateaux, mappa etc. please visit my website or linktr.ee/johnrobinbold

John-Robin Bold (born in 1995 in Hamburg, Germany) is an immaterial artist working with electronic music, internet and installation art. His practice explores the aesthetic mutations of digital media and their unforeseeable impact on music, art, subjectivity and society at large. Reconfiguring paradigms from early and classical music, global pop industries, and avant-garde modernism, Bold’s work offers an uncompromising perspective on contemporary culture from a position sharpened by history.
Originally pursuing a path as a classical guitarist, amongst the main motivations behind his experimental work are to assess the digitised social reality of music and to strive for sonic novelty. In 2020, John-Robin Bold released solo albums on Quanta Records and Mille Plateaux, inspired by notions of sacrality, pop and the end of music. He performs concerts throughout Europe at establishments like Golden Pudel, ZKM, The White Hotel, FUSE Art Space and Volksbühne to name but a few. BBC Radio 3, NTS, Deutschlandfunk, Radio 1 Czech, LYL Radio, Cashmere Radio, and Resonance FM are among those radio stations airing his music.

Understanding today’s music within its online platform-embedded context, has led to a series of extensive website-specific projects since 2018 (SoundCloud Gazing, Audio Library Of A Viewable World/YouTube), in which Bold appropriates the online platforms’ functions, visual and textual aspects as artistic tools to become an inherent part of the musical experience. 2022 saw his first solo show entitled ‘SoundCloud Gazing: website-specific music’ at /rosa (Zentrum für Netzkunst / Centre for Net Art), Berlin. International group exhibitions took place at The New Art Fest Lisbon, SYNNIKA Frankfurt, Ars Electronica Linz, Spazju Kreattiv Valetta, Foundry Dubai and Galerie Obrist Essen.

What unites Bold’s eclectic use of different media and aesthetic directives, is a compositional approach to form, thematic rigour and tense dramaturgy. He frequently collaborates with Andy Cowling (we may be on the way, Glenn Dancer Records, 2021), Daniel Vier (-The Hub-, immersive installation, 2021, with A. Cowling), Lukas Wegscheider and Elia Moretti (Symposium Musicum, mappa, 2023).

John-Robin Bold lives in Manchester, UK and is a musician, artist and teacher.