Ugo Petronin (b.1985, Aix-en Provence, FR) artist-filmmaker based in Rotterdam. 

I try to make art that changes the way we interact and coexist with our natural and technical environment. I am particularly interested in imaging technologies and aquatic ecosystems. In practice, I like to play with the unknown, pushing imaging technologies to produce alternative perceptual and technical relationships with the biophysical world. The resulting artworks are often audiovisual hybrids of film, new media and sensory ethnography. How we make images is
always a central concern in my methodology. Therefore, the technical and the gestural are two of the most important dimensions in my process, and often the sites of my interventions. While this process can change depending of subjects and situations, it consistently balances optimism, subversion and criticism.

On the 2023-24 horizon? Writing and producing a science-fiction film on vision loss and body regeneration, a VR immersive experience driven by biofeedbacks.

I work in cycles, where I investigate a particular technique, phenomenon or place. I have three ongoing research cycles, Gestures of Opening which explores continuous exposure in cinematography, Shallow Cinema that delves into interactions between imagination and Dutch freshwater ecosystems, and Becoming Soma, a collaborative project that experiments with  the mechanics of bio/neurofeedback in virtual reality.

My first film Abiding (2019) has been awarded and screened in several international festivals such as Kasseler Dokfest, Oberhausen, Ji.hlava, IndieLisboa, IFFR, GoShort (...). My work is distributed by Eye International, Doc Alliance Films and Blink Video. My ongoing projects are made possible thanks to the support of the Nederlands Filmfonds, Stichting Droom-en-Daad, TETEM, Fonds Kwadraat and Time Window. 

I am the founder of the creative studio Leaving Space and a member of the Rotterdam-based art organisation Time Window. I hold a Bachelor in Cinema & Anthropology from Aix-Marseille University and a Master of Fine Arts & Design from the Piet Zwart Institute. 

Curious? Come for coffee in the studio I share with filmmaker Ewan Macbeth at Time Window, Teilingerstraat 120, 3032 AW Rotterdam.