Richard Chartier
Richard Chartier (born March 29, 1971) is a sound/installation artist and graphic designer from the United States. He works in reductionist microsound electronic music, a form of extreme minimalism characterised by quiet and sparse sound.
Also recorded as pinkcourtesyphone
Richard Chartier
- Name
- Richard Chartier
- Born
- 29 March 1971
- Nationality
- United States.
- Occupation
- graphic designer, artist and musician.
- Fields
- ambient music.
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Documentary summary
Richard Chartier (born March 29, 1971) is a sound/installation artist and graphic designer from the United States. He works in reductionist microsound electronic music, a form of extreme minimalism characterised by quiet and sparse sound.
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Documentary evidence
Documentary basis
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wikidata · Q1518141 · wikipedia · Richard Chartier
In this article
Biography
Biography
Chartier worked across graphic designer, artist and musician. The registers place that work in ambient music. This article rests on 4 catalogued compositions, 2 published texts, 60 issued recordings and 26 scholarly references drawn from named institutional registers. Every statement below returns to a source shown in the evidence panel; where the record is silent or divided, the article says so instead of resolving it.
Key facts
Key facts
• Name — Richard Chartier • Born — 29 March 1971 • Origin — Washington, DC • Years Active — 1998 – present • Label — 12k/Line, Raster-Noton, Spekk, Die Stadt, Trente Oiseaux and others • Website — Richard Chartiers's homepage Richard Chartier (born March 29, 1971) is a sound/installation artist and graphic designer from the United States. He works in reductionist microsound electronic music, a form of extreme minimalism characterised by quiet and sparse sound.
Early life and education
Early life and education
Chartier was born in Arlington, Virginia, in 1971, and studied at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia, from 1989 to 1993, graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts Cum Laude with a Concentration in Graphic Design and Painting.
Career
Career
Chartier's sound works and sound installations have been included in the exhibits Sounding Spaces at ICC (Tokyo, Japan), I Moderni / The Moderns at Castello di Rivoli (Torino, Italy), 2002 Biennial at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, Resynthesis at the Art Institute of Chicago and with the traveling sound exhibit Invisible Cities created by digital media curators Fehler as well as solo and collaborative installations for Fusebox (DC), 1515 Arts/G Fine Art (DC), Die Schachtel (Milan, Italy), and Diapason (New York). He has performed his work live across Europe, Japan, Australia, and North America at MUTEK (Montreal, Canada), GRM/Maison de Radio France (Paris, France), Observatori (Valencia, Spain), DEAF (Dublin, Ireland), Transmediale (Berlin, Germany), Lovebytes (Sheffield, UK), the Leeds International Film Festival (Leeds, UK), the Rotterdam International Film Festival (NE), Garage (Stralsund, Germany), La Batie (Geneva, Switzerland), and other digital art/music festivals and at exhibits such as Frequenzen [Hz] at the Schirn Kunsthalle (Frankfurt) and A Minimal Future? Art as Object 1958-1968 and Visual Music at the Museum of Contemporary Art (Los Angeles). In 2000 he formed the recording label LINE, which releases compositional and installation work by sound artists and composers working with contemporary and digital minimalism, including Bernhard Gunter, Steve Roden, Taylor Deupree, Christopher Willits, Roel Meelkop, Carsten Nicolai/Alva Noto, Asmus Tietchens, Mark Fell and the first full-length CDs by Miki Yui, Skoltz_Kolgen, and Steinbruchel. The first release on LINE, Chartier's Series, was awarded Honorable Mention in the category of Digital Music by the Prix Ars Electronica, 2001 (Austria). In 2006 he was commissioned by the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden to create a collaborative sound performance work in conjunction with the Hiroshi Sugimoto retrospective exhibit. This work, entitled Specification. Fifteen, was awarded one of five Honorable Mentions for outstanding contemporary artistic positions in digital media art by the jury of the Transmediale.07 Award Competition in Germany, and exhibited as a recording and presented as a live performance with a new video work created from Sugimoto's Seascapes at the Akademie der Kuenste (Berlin). In 2009, Richard Chartier presented a collaborative installation with visual artist Linn Meyers. Untitled, exhibited at the Art Gallery of University of Maryland (US) two 15 ft by 8 ft walls meet in an enfolding chevron, creating both a sound chamber and a drawing surface. The swirling lines of Meyers' drawing were drawn directly on the surface of the walls, accompanied by a sound piece by Chartier. With eight audio transducers applied directly to the back surface of the walls, Chartier's composition modulates and transfers through the surfaces. Untitled(Angle.1), a stereo composition based on Untitled was released on Non Visual Objects (Austria) as a limited edition CD. In March 2010, Chartier was awarded a Smithsonian Institution Artist Research Fellowship to study the National Museum of American History's collection of 19th Century acoustic apparatus for scientific demonstration. Chartier will focus specifically on the many sirens, waveforms, and other inventions of the German physicist Rudolf Koenig including the Grand Tonometer (c. 1870–1875), the only instrument of its kind in existence. Since 1998, Chartier has created recordings for labels such as LINE (USA), Raster-Noton (Germany), Die Stadt (Germany), Spekk (Japan), 12k (US) Mutek rec (Canada), DSP (Italy), ERS (Netherlands), Trente Oiseaux (Germany), Fallt (Ireland), Intransitive (USA), and collaborated with artists Taylor Deupree, William Basinski, CoH, Kim Cascone, and Asmus Tietchens.
Life and work
Life and work
Richard Chartier was born on 29 March 1971 in Arlington County. Chartier held the nationality of United States. Chartier worked as graphic designer, artist and musician. Chartier was active from 1998. The fields Chartier worked in include ambient music.
Life and career
Dated record
Life and career
The full dated record · 1 entries
1971
Richard Chartier born at Arlington County.
Catalogued output
Compositions
The entries below are works composed by the subject, as the institutional registers catalogue them; later performances and commercial recordings of the same music are listed separately. 4 further compositions are catalogued under Chartier's name without a date the collections agree on, which is why they are set apart from the dated run rather than placed in it. Bleak Is My Favourite Cliché.
The entries follow MusicBrainz
Solo Recordings
Solo Recordings
• A Field for Recording CD (2010, Room40) • Untitled(Angle.1) CD (2009, NVO) • Further Materials CD (2008, LINE) • Absence CD (2008, 3particles) • Incidence CD (2007, Raster-Noton) • Current CD (2006, Room40) • Levels(Inverted) CD (2006, LINE) • Tracing CD (2005, NVO) • Opening Coccyx Die Schachtel, Italy] CD/Edition 2005 • Retrieval 1-5 [ERS, Netherlands] CD 2005 • Re'post'postfabricated [DSP, Italy] (reformed+remixes) 2xCD 2005 • Set or Performance [LINE, US] CD 2004 • Archival1991 [Crouton, US] CD 2003 • Overview 3particles, US] CD 2003 • Two Locations [LINE, US] CD 2003 • Other Materials [3particles, US] CD 2003 • of surfaces [LINE, US] CD 2002 • typeof Fällt, N.Ireland] 3" CD 2001 • decisive forms Trente Oiseaux, Germany] CD 2001 • series [LINE, US] CD 2000 / reissued 2001 • a hesitant fold [Meme, Japan] CD 1999 • post-fabricated [Microwave, Netherlands] CDR 1999 • direct.incidental.consequential [Intransitive, US] CD 1998
Collaborative Recordings
Collaborative Recordings
• Fabrication 2 (with Asmus Tietchens) 2CD (2010, Auf Abwegen) • Untitled 1-3 (with William Basinski) [LINE, USA] CD 2008 • Fabrication (with Asmus Tietchens)[Die Stadt, Germany] 2CD 2007 • Specification. Fifteen (with Taylor Deupree)[LINE, US] CD 2006 • Live in Los Angeles (as CHESSMACHINE) [LINE, US] CD 2005 • Chessmachine (with COH) [Mutek_rec, Canada] CD 2004 • William Basinski + Richard Chartier [Spekk, Japan] CD 2004 • Varied as 0/r (with Nosei Sakata) [12k, US] CD 2002 • after (Cascone + Chartier + Deupree) [12k, US] CD 2002 • SPEC. (with Taylor Deupree) [12k, US] CD 1999 • 0/r (with Nosei Sakata) [12k, US]CD 1999
Recordings and discography
Primary material
Recordings and discography
The discography assembled here shows how Chartier's work has been published in sound, not what Chartier made. 60 sound issues are catalogued, carrying dates from 1998 to 2025. An issue is a published recording, distinct from the composition it carries, from a printed score of that composition and from any single performance of it; none of the entries below is counted in the catalogue of compositions above, and several of them carry the same work in different readings. The 2000s are the densest decade of publication, with 25 issues. The performers and issuing labels are as the discographic register states them; where it names no performer the article names none.
Decisive Forms
2001
Further Materials
2008
After
2002
Re’Post’Postfabricated
2005
Two Locations
2003
Central (For M.Vainio)
2018
LINELEH I
2017
Reflect What You Are
2006
Transparency (Performance)
2011
Incidence
2006
Continue
2020
DUO
2018
Set or Performance
2004
November 9, 2007
2007
A Hesitant Fold
1999
Archival 1991
2003
Recurrence.Expansion, dated 2023. On a continuous form
2023
Divertissement
2015
Edition
2004
Interreferences II
2021
Variable Dimensions
2020
Interior Field
2013
Untitled (angle.1)
2009
Removed
2017
Series
2000
Aurora terminalis, dated 2025. InvalidObject Series (typeof), dated 2000. Staticforms
2015
LINELEH II
2017
Current
2006
(For Morton Feldman)
2002
Tracing
2005
PRE (1-3)
2016
Undefined
2013
On Leaving
2024
Direct, Incidental, Consequential
1998
Direct.Incidental.Consequential (Edition 2)
2014
Absention
2020
Specification.Fifteen
2006
Subsequent Materials
2014
Interreferences
2021
Fabrication
2007
Retrieval 1-5
2005
Something From the Pink House
2020
Fabrication 2
2010
SPEC
1999
Ni envers ni endroit que cette roche brûlante (Pour Georgia O’Keeffe) / Recurrence.Expansion
2023
Aurora Liminalis
2013
A Field for Mixing, dated 2010. [untitled]
2004
Stase hivernale
2022
Recurrence
2012
Built Through
2012
Overview
2003
Levels
2006
Away
2020
Post-Fabricated
1999
Primary material
Documents and archives
authority record
- Wikidata, structured authority record Q1518141: Richard Chartier
General reference · Wikidata
reference work
- “Richard Chartier”, English Wikipedia, consulted as further reading
Reputable secondary · Wikipedia
Authority records
Notes from the source article
Cited by Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
Bibliography printed in the source article · 1
- Demers, Joanna. Listening Through The Noise. New York: Oxford University Press. 2010.
References
Citations
References
Each reference names the institution holding it, so a reader may go to the document itself.
authority record
Secondary witnessreference work
Secondary witness
The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 18 August 2026.
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