Richard Chartier

Minimal sound artist and graphic designer Richard Chartier examines the boundary separating silence from digital composition by shaping nearly inaudible works meant for quiet playback or headphone use. Although releases have appeared on numerous international imprints such as 12k, Raster-Noton, and Spekk, he has channeled his own output, along with dozens of pieces by kindred figures including Asmus Tietchens, Bernhard Günter, and William Basinski, through the Line imprint—first launched as a 12k subsidiary before becoming fully independent. His initial Line title, Series (2000), earned an honorable mention at Austria’s Prix Ars Electronica in 2001. Compilations have likewise featured his pieces, most prominently Mille Plateaux’s widely praised Clicks & Cuts, Vol. 2, which gathered leading glitch producers around 2001. Beyond the dozens of solo albums he had amassed by the late 2010s, Chartier has joined forces with each of those three artists as well as Nosei Sakata (under the 0/r alias), Yann Novak, and Steve Roden. Live appearances have included festivals such as MUTEK in Montreal, while installations have reached venues including the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, ICC in Tokyo, and the Art Institute of Chicago.