Most of our daily exchanges occur at un unconscious level and bypass spoken language, leading to a mode of communication that is often highly ambiguous, where the constitutive « rules » of the exchange are seldom expressed beforehand but need to be discovered / invented all through the interactions. This participative installation seeks to provide a deep experience of such a non-verbal communication, as well as a sensitive translation of this experience that preserves its inherent ambiguity.

The participants are equipped with respiratory belts and comfortably lying on the floor under an horizontal circular screen that receives an intense flickering white light from two projectors placed on the ceiling. The rhythm and intensity of the flicker are correlated to each person's breathing, providing to the participants a bright luminous feedback of their breathing. While the experiencers are invited to a slow and conscious respiration, the two flickers add up on the screen and the two persons actually receive an intermingled feedback of their common breathings. The sensitive experience reaches its climax when the two participants breathe in tune.

The use of light is an allegory suggesting that pleasure and pain have no obvious separation, an ambiguity the installation seeks to exploit. The intense light, while it could be regarded as a metaphor for pureness (bright and white) and delight (warmth), also has displeasing conotations such as particle bombarding in nuclear physics or medical treatments (eg. cancer therapy). The participants would not see directly the light, but they would wear instead a thin eye mask and, while feeling the light through their eyelids, they would experience the luminous beat like in a synaesthetic experience, as if it were coming from inside.

From the distance, the public would be able to see the intense flickering light, as there should be no physical obstacle that prevents them to get near the experiencers, although the intensity of the light, that naturally keep them from getting too close, preserves the needed intimacy of the experiencers. The screen is diaphanous but not transparent and also acts as a visual protection with the rest of the public. A view from above is allowed, like a third eye on the system, where the bodies can be seen as shaded blury silhouettes under intense light, a suggestive figure also conveying the same ambiguous meanings, and reminding that bodies are strong and fragile at the same time.

PARTIR DE NUIT est une vieille idée, que je ressors de mes cartons (récupérés depuis peu !). L'installation est inspirée d'une expérience de l'enfance. Voyage de nuit, traversée urbaine nocturne, couché à l'arrière de la voiture, j'observais par le carreau le haut des façades et mon esprit partait dans une agréable rêverie, habité d'un sentiment de légereté, étranger à l'agitation de ces villes, comme si elles provenaient d'un autre temps... L'installation propose une expérience contemplative qui pourra évoquer les longs travellings de Duras ou d'Akerman, donnant à voir l'imaginaire d'un enfant lors d'un voyage de nuit, ressassant toujours les mêmes images, entre rêve et cauchemar.

MACHINES (PROJECTION / MECHANICAL TRAVELLING) →  PICTURES

Images argentiques prises de nuit
Reconstitution mécanique d'un travelling infini
Projecteurs dédiés, pilotage informatique

L'HEURE BLEUE is an audio-visual variation around a thin horizontal line. This time-based work is actually made out of analog stills representing unrecognizable close-ups of familiar objects, creating an artificial landscape. The installation invites the public to a contemplative reverie, while it also questions a human tendancy that consists in continually interpreting what they hear and see.

Created and exhibited in residence at Motor Hairport (Lisbon, Portugal) – 2010

IMAGES (L'HEURE BLEUE) →  VIEW

A VIDEO RECORDING OF THE INSTALLATION →  OPEN VIDEO

OCÉANIDES - immersive video installation (loop, large mirror)
Drowned in an absolute clarity, the eye tries detecting a shape, the ear seeks an anchor point, the whole body is preparing for a symphony that is about to occur.

RECOMBINANT LANDSCAPE
Recombinant Landscape shows an hypnotic blend of two perceptions that occurred at different times.

A BLUE SKY WOULD BE SUSPISCIOUS
A landscape seen from above unfolds on the ground, a straight line between my departure location and the location of the exhibition space, locally converted into an infinite kaleidoscopic travelling for whom will dare to lie down in the straw.

SOME IMAGES →  VIEW

VIDEO (OCÉANIDES) →  OPEN VIDEO
VIDEO (RECOMBINANT LANDSCAPE) →  OPEN VIDEO

Festival « laisser le passage libre » (Barnave, France) – 2010
Solo Exhib. « homo virtualis » (IFP, Lisbon, Portugal) – 2010
Festival « zaat 09 » (Lisbon, Portugal) – 2009
Biennial of Porto Santo (Madeira, Portugal) – 2009
USTL culture (Villeneuve d'Ascq, France) – 2003

VOLATILES is a portrait series made via a motion capture system. The models are reduced to a pure movement, showing the gesture as the only remaining identity of their donor. From a collection of around 1500 captures from a former installation, I've been choosing those that I like, in a kind of « minimal » act of choreography (the operation simply consists in observing, selecting and gathering). My acts and decisions may remind the ones of an entomologist, collecting and choosing with care and delicate handling the little animals he has caught. Their exhibition is like the conditional release of a movement, transformed in an ephemeral signature that expresses the uniqueness of the person who issued it.

Solo Exhib. « homo virtualis » (IFP, Lisbon, Portugal) – 2010
Festival « zaat 09 » (Lisbon, Portugal) – 2009
Collective exhibition « corpo & alma » (National Pantheon of Lisbon, Portugal) – 2008

SOME IMAGES →  VIEW

VIDEO SAMPLE →  OPEN VIDEO

This installation is a confrontation of two different conceptions of memory: a biographical memory (the memory of self, others and History) which is constitutive of anyone's identity, faces the scientific dimension of memory (a process that cannot be separated from its physiological substrate). A 2m-wide latex membrane receives images from an eco-system of artworks exchanging audio and video streams. The installation stimulates a combination of various senses: sight, hearing, touch and smell (tasting the sculpture is not recommended, though…). This audio-visual sculpture is conceived as the simulacrum of an organic skin, presented to the public in its nakedness, showing on its surface a swarming of images that suggest the process of memory.

Prod. CITU laboratory (M.Benayoun, univ. Paris 1 / Paris 8)
Collective Exhib. « the art Collider » (Paris, France) – 2008
sound: Julien Clauss
scenography: Fabianny Deschamps

SOME IMAGES →  VIEW

A VIDEO CAPTURE →  OPEN VIDEO

RELATED DOCUMENTS (IN FRENCH)
« Biocénose et rhétorique des systèmes, la ruse du simulacre »

SCHEMATIC VIEW OF THE « RULES » OF THE SYSTEM

PRÉLUDE À TRANSFORMATON NATURELLE is a mise-en-scene of natural language in relation to the raw flow of thought. The actors are theoreticians, writers and dancers, who had to face some language game constraints. It was created at the Castle of Bostz in France in May 2008 during the ELECTROBOLOCHOC WORKSHOP, the actors are Sémir Badir, Paul-Victor Duquaire, Alessio Moretti, Marc Perrin, Anne Wambergue, Sandrine Willems.

The unique efficiency of science is due, at least partially, to the exactness and specificity of its languages. In return, the excessive specialization of technical language sometimes leads to sort of a «babelization» of speech, having this paradoxical property to be quite poetic for outsiders. Since scientific research is an enacted production, formal and natural languages probably inform each other. I explore this theme in a participative video installation, by enhancing the esoteric charge of scientific discourse. The work is based on interviews. The participants expose their research as naturally as they would do with their colleagues or in a specialized seminar, but they have to face some language constraints (eg. substituting or swaping words etc.) that cancel a direct understanding of their speech and produce a shift of the attention toward other aspects of the discourse, unveiling their personal use of natural language. Due to the concentration requiered by the exercise, the participants often relax their control and reveal a subjective and sensitive personnality that may be hidden by the ideal of objectivity imposed by science. The participants end up building on their free will a discourse bordering on absurdity, providing for themselves and for the others an insightful experience of the limits of language and the fragility of thoughts.

VIDEO EXTRACT →  OPEN VIDEO
INSTALLATION IN CONTEXT →  OPEN VIDEO

In combinatorial abstract games, such as Chess or Go, the player's posture has something similar to the posture of a mathematician demonstrating a theorem, such games are indeed likely to stimulate similar schemes of thougth, resulting internally in a similar experience and, externally, in a physical attitude characteristic to that kind of activity. Beyond the solitary experience involved in pure abstract thinking, the framework imposed by a two-player game is a mise-en-scene of an agonistic, but nonetheless playful, « relation in thoughts » between two persons. ALPHA is an award winning combinatorial game of my conception. Its singularity lies in an unusual capturing principle, a board shape inspired from non-Euclidean geometry and pieces names playfully refering to a psychiatric environment. The interest of a game in an artistic context dwells not in the object itself but in the relations that it creates within the public and in the resulting experience: the public « enact » the game by their active participation.

Collective Exhibition « Bridges » (Pecs, Hungary) – 2010
Collective Exhibition « GamePlay » (USA, Nebraska) – 2010
Centre National du Jeu (Paris, France) – Awarded the First Prize – 2008

GAMESETS DESIGNED BY LOU GALOPA →  PICTURES

We learn at a very early age the movements that become second nature: walking, opening a door, greeting somebody… The demands of society result in the construction of ergonomic reflexes which, as they accumulate on different levels of depth, have shaped our personality through the strategies that we have deployed to respond to them. This installation seeks to reveal this normative conditioning by immersing the spectators in a closed space, removed from any social context, to entice an exploration of body motions through a playful attitude. Outside of the immersion room, the audience is turned into a sort of body graphologist, observing the strategy deployed by the immersed visitor. The projection erases the state to present a body-motion, while the removal of the Galilean referent underlines even further what might be called after Deleuze a deterritorialization of the gesture.

The installation was co-produced by Le Fresnoy and INRIA in 2006
(SOFTWARE CONCEPTION - Jean-Marc Hasenfratz // SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT - Marc Lapierre)

RELATED DOCUMENTS (IN FRENCH)
« s'il prend appui [ pdf ] » + « s'il prend appui [ web ] »   @ - http://interstices.info (INRIA)
« Rationalisation et mise en scène, étude de cas »   @ SIANA 2009 - INT Telecom & Management SudParis - Evry

SOME IMAGES →  VIEW

VIDEO SAMPLE →  OPEN VIDEO

REGARD SUR LE BRUIT is part of my research into a visual non narrative form. The images - sequences of ordinary lives taken from amateur super8 films - are composed live via a mixed projection set up (16mm projectors, computer, control panels) designed specifically and manipulated like an instrument. The sound material is partly taken from films but their source is erased in the repetition, and creates a more bruitist effect. Their obsessional presence guides the spectator towards an a-temporal reading of the image, by de-contextualising it. Like a palimpsest film, the writing of this poem as the layering of non synchronous time zones questions the structuring presence of the timeline in the narration. The images come together according to a pattern that one might call "proto-narrative" where the spectator sees himself entrusted with part of the work of constructing the narrative.

The performance was produced by Le Fresnoy in 2005, the music is from Julien Clauss

VIDEO SAMPLE →  OPEN VIDEO

SYNOPTIC SCHEMA OF THE PROJECTION SET UP USED DURING THE LIVE

RESUME - «A child looks towards the future. He scrutinizes the horizon and projects his fantasies but his eye is too new. He cannot see clearly. As an adult, he looks back to the past. His memories have crystallized and time has already engraved its erosive mark. Certain haunting passages come back to him like an obsession. Obvious things escape him. So his eyes try to relax. The child and the adult both try to make out the shapes drawn in the resonant and visual noise of their common conscience. Carried by the same man, both these glances intersect and in their meeting join together.»

A static sound oscillates when the visitor moves, while two pairs of projectors, each projecting complementary colors, produce a slightly vibrating white light. When the visitor comes across a beam, two colored shadows appear on the opposite wall. In this landscape of pure frequencies, the sound prompts the visitor to move while the image suggests to stay still, causing an alternation of perceptions, as if he could no longer hear while watching or watch while hearing.

Des séquences de films amateurs des années 70 défilent au ralenti et renvoient par leur grain et leur facture à une époque qui évoque l'enfance. Sur un autre écran apparait un personnage qui pourrait être sorti d'un jeu vidéo, mimant des gestes de combat et d'arts martiaux. Il évolue dans un décor interchangeable et parait inoffensif tant qu'il reste cloisonné dans son univers.

Les potentialités des images de synthèse permettent de recréer de toutes pièces des univers visuels en temps réel. Il arrive souvent que le jeu vidéo s'inspire du cinéma et que le cinéma emprunte lui-aussi certains codes au jeu vidéo dans ses procédés narratifs (Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive, Memento) mais aussi dans ses procédés filmiques (Elephant, Matrix, Alien). Bien qu'il existe une contamination mutuelle des deux genres, l'image n'est pas pensée de la même façon. Le jeu vidéo est subordonné à des contraintes d'interactivité qui le conduisent à schématiser et décomposer l'image. Les jeux vidéo des années 80 utilisent des sprites (personnages 2D dont les postures sont prédéfinies) qui évoluent sur un décor 2D interchangeable. Cette décomposition induit une schématisation qui simplifie les objets. La confrontation de ces deux univers pourrait induire une forme de strabisme. L'espace du jeu vidéo est virtuel et simplifié : il schématise les actions en discrétisant l'espace des configurations. L'autre univers, en contraste, parait riche d'une infinité de possibles et les souvenirs qu'il évoque prennent une existence très proche du réel.

Le héros pseudo-virtuel, avatar d'un archétype de jeu vidéo des années 80, cherche à échapper à sa condition en tentant de pénétrer dans les souvenirs d'un enfant. L'acteur est filmé sur fond noir et son incrustation sur le décor est réalisée en live. Les mouvements du héros et les décors figés sont volontairement filmés en argentique - médium manifestement inadéquat - pour insister sur le contraste entre ces deux types d'images et mettre en évidence plusieurs simulacres : celui d'une interactivité qui n'existe plus même si l'avatar en conserve des séquelles, celui d'un univers dont la profondeur est absente (figures 2D plaquées sur décor 2D). La musique en 8bits d'un jeu vidéo de cette époque semble elle-aussi manquer de profondeur.

QUELQUES IMAGES DES PERFORMANCES →  VIEW

En termes de recherches visuelles, PERSISTANCES est la suite logique de CLOCKWISE LIGHT. La performance plonge le spectateur dans le ressenti du souvenir. Les échelles de temps raccourcissent en vieillissant, les pensées se modifient en conséquence, se confondent en amalgames et en surimpressions, et la recherche d'un souvenir lointain devient un processus lancinant où les idées emmergent par la récurrence.

Les images proviennent de films Super8 anonymes qui font renaître visuellement un vécu collectif dans lequel le spectateur est invité à projeter ses propres souvenirs. Les films, projetés en surimpression à des vitesses variables, invitent l'œil à un regard particulier, où il se voit hésiter entre une exploration spatiale de chaque photogramme et une exploration dans la profondeur temporelle. La lenteur des images évoque une autre époque où une certaine forme de persistance peut donner le sentiment de permanence. L'indifférence même des scènes montrées nous les rend d'autant plus proches et signifiantes, mais d'une signification libre, relevant peut-être de l'association libre de la psychanalyse, où chacun investit ses propres fantasmes. La confrontation avec ces souvenirs mystérieux qui pourraient être les nôtres est susceptible d'éveiller un sentiment d'inquiétante étrangeté, impression que l'on a parfois en rêve, d'étrangeté de ce qui est familier. Tout objet familier, tout événement quotidien, devient inquiétant ou menaçant. Cela aboutit à une expérience onirique, avec toutefois la particularité d'être partagée : devant les yeux du public se construit une fiction qui pourrait ressembler à un rêve collectif.

Musique en live par Julien Clauss
@ La Malterie, Lille (résidence)
@ Galerie Stimultania, Strasbourg
@ USTL culture, Villeneuve d'Ascq
@ Galerie Intérieur, Lille, France

IMAGES (RESIDENCE @ LE PLATEAU / LA MALTERIE) →  VIEW

IMAGES DES PREMIERES MACHINES →  VIEW

VIDEO SAMPLE →  OPEN VIDEO
VIDEO SAMPLE →  OPEN VIDEO

Siège de la bourse allemande, Franckfort est une ville à deux faces où les buildings high-tech cotoient de près les zones industrielles sans qu'il y ait de séparation franche. J'ai souhaité proposer le regard d'un étranger sur la ville au travers d'une expérience de cinéma en live où j'ai rendu indirectement la présence de l'humain, comme une simple trace.

La musique est jouée en live par Julien Clauss.
Plusieurs performances ont eu lieu à FREE MANIFESTA @ Manifesta IV, Frankfurt am Main, Germany - 2002.

QUELQUES CAPTURES VIDEO @ ROXI, ROTARI, ENDLESS SUMMER

VIDEO SAMPLE →  OPEN VIDEO
VIDEO SAMPLE →  OPEN VIDEO
VIDEO SAMPLE →  OPEN VIDEO