Antoine Chessex is a Swiss composer, experimental musician, and sound artist whose work explores the material, spatial, and political dimensions of noise. Drawing on artistic experience that began in the late 1990s, he has developed a distinctively transversal practice that moves fluidly between performance, installation, research, teaching, and composition. Rooted in an uncompromising exploration of sonic intensity, Chessex’s early work as a solo performer and collaborator — including long-standing exchanges with figures such as Zbigniew Karkowski, Jérôme Noetinger, and Valerio Tricoli — established him as a central voice within international noise and avant-garde circles. As a founding member of the experimental noise-rock band MONNO, he toured extensively across underground scenes, while also performing worldwide as a solo artist and sound practitioner over the past decades. Parallel to his performance activities, his practice expanded toward large-scale works for instrumental ensembles, translating the density and mass of noise into contemporary compositional contexts. His pieces have been performed by ensembles such as Apartment House, Ensemble Proton, Ensemble Ictus, and Kammerensemble Neue Musik Berlin.
Since relocating to Zurich in 2015, Chessex has integrated artistic research and teaching into his practice at the Zurich University of the Arts, where he works at the intersection of sound studies, sonic arts, and cultural studies, alongside practice-based formats that explore plural listening contexts. His work continues to investigate listening as a critical and embodied practice, engaging ecological, social, and political questions through sound.
His works have been presented at numerous venues and festivals around the globe like Cafe OTO (London), Transmediale festival (Berlin), Videotage (Hong Kong), Diapason Gallery (New York), Issue Project Room (New York), The Lab (San Francisco), The Compound (San Francisco), INA/GRM Présence électronique Festival (Paris), Berghain (Berlin), Tuned City festival (Berlin), Alexandrinsky Theatre (St-Petersburg), Sonic Protest festival (Paris), Unsound festival (Krakow), Make It Up Club (Melbourne), Archipel festival (Geneva), Women (Los Angeles), Ultra Hang festival (Budapest), Parnassos concert hall (Athen), Ateliers Claus (Brussels), Vaal Gallery (Tallinn), Dom (Moscow), Grim (Marseilles), All Ears Festival (Oslo), Corsica Studios (London), Sound Forest festival (Riga), Urban Guild (Kyoto), Urga (Tokyo), Ochiai Soup (Tokyo), Namba Bear (Osaka), Swissnex (San Francisco), Center of contemporary arts (Warsaw), Ultima contemporary music festival (Oslo), Fundacion Serralves (Porto), Palace Akropolis (Prague), Tam Tuumb! Festival (Roma), Audio Art Festival (Krakow), Meteo Festival (Mulhouse), Death Petrol No Luxe (Antwerpen), Sibelius Academy (Helsinki), Ze Dos Bois (Lisbon), Elastic Arts (Chicago), HAU (Berlin), Mochvara (Zagreb), Anthology Film Archives (New York), Ancienne Belgique (Brussels), LUFF festival (Lausanne), Ruin Festival (Wien), Echo festival (Belgrade), Fylkingen (Stockholm), Sendesaal Bremen, DNK(Amsterdam), Istituto Svizzero (Roma), Rotterdam Film Festival and Fri Art (Fribourg).
Chessex is the recipient of an Artist Prize "Werkjahr" from the City of Zurich in 2018, a Swiss Music Prize from the Federal Office of Culture in 2020, as well as an Artist Prize from the Suisa Foundation in 2021.