Olivia Louvel is a French-born British artist, composer and researcher whose work is presented in the form of sound recordings, sound art installations, video art and live performances.

She was awarded an Ivor Novello/Best Sound Art at the Ivors Classical Awards 2023 for ‘LOL’, a sonic intervention delivered via the public address system of Middlesbrough’s CCTV surveillance network during Middlesbrough Art Week 2022.

Her research draws on a long-standing exploration of the voice and an increasingly hybrid practice at the intersection of sound and sculpture. This manifests in various forms, such as applying sculpture principles to digitally carve the voice of Barbara Hepworth, creating generative sound murals–voice reliefs–with miniature speakers, 3D printing her voice for a series of 'VoiceScape’, and investigating the acoustic relationship between voice and sculpture within Lukas Kühne’s site-specific sculpture, ‘Tvísöngur’, in remote Iceland.

In 2025, she received her PhD in Arts and Communication from the University of Brighton for her thesis ‘A hybrid encounter, a concrete voice: on the interplay of voice and sculpture,’ following interdisciplinary research across the Fine Art and Sound departments. She coined the term ‘voice sculpture’. Louvel has published in influential journals, including Leonardo (The MIT Press), Divergence Press (CeReNeM, University of Huddersfield) and Organised Sound (Cambridge University Press).  

Louvel’s work often addresses socio-political issues and women’s voices, using sound and voice as documentary tools to unearth narratives. 

Throughout her extensive research on Barbara Hepworth, she produced ‘The Sculptor Speaks’ (2020) a resounding of a Barbara Hepworth archival tape, which was premiered on Resonance Extra and followed by an audio-visual version presented at The Hepworth Wakefield in 2021, and at Towner in 2023. ‘SculptOr’ is a suite of nine pieces based on Hepworth’s writings released as a digipak CD.  ‘The Sculptor Speaks’ was nominated for an Ivor Novello Award in the Sound Art category at the Ivors Composer Awards 2020.  

Installation works include: ‘LOL’ (2022), a site-specific sonic intervention reflecting the state of political affairs in Britain, delivered through the public address system of Middlesbrough’s CCTV surveillance network; ‘Doggerland Channels’ (2022), a generative sound-relief based on the ancient land which once linked Britain to the continent, premiered at Phoenix Art Space for Sound Art Brighton, and reinstalled at Middlesbrough Art Week, 2023;  and ’The Whole Inside’ (2019), a generative sound mural exploring the violent misogyny of the Incels. ‘The Whole Inside’ was selected for the Longlist at the Aesthetica Art Prize 2021, and is published in the ‘Aesthetica Art Prize Anthology: Future Now.’

Other compositional and audio-visual works include: ‘doggerLANDscape’ (2023), a video art on the submerged forest of Doggerland; ‘Not A Creature Of Paper’ (2019) a Louise Labé inspired composition for avant-garde ensemble Juice Vocal, premiered at Kings Place; ’Data Regina’ (2017), a multimedia suite based on Mary Queen of Scots’ writings through an interactive digital platform - Arts Council funded; and ‘Afraid of Women’ (2016), an audio-visual piece raising awareness for Rojava, the autonomous zone in Northern Syria.

In 2018, she toured throughout the UK presenting a headline audio-visual set of ‘Data Regina’ for ‘Synth Remix’, an event curated by Benjamin Tassie under Sound and Music's Composer-Curator scheme. 

Her music has been broadcast on BBC Radio 3 Late Junction, New Music Show, BBC Radio 6 Freak Zone, and Resonance Extra. 

Her research has received support from the Arts Council of England on several occasions, as well as from the Henry Moore Foundation for an artist residency at the Skaftfell Art Centre in Seyðisfjörður, Iceland.

She is a member of Sound Art Brighton and the Hepworth Research Network.