superficiel in depth

In the Nuit Blanche, I'm rarely struck by the artistic value of a piece. What usually motivates me to walk around town at night, and face the crowd is the display of the piece, the use of the night, the use of the exhibition space, how it meets me randomly. It's a very paradoxical event made to bring art out of the galleries, in the urban space, at nighttime, free for everyone to encounter. But it turns out to have become less about art and more about fun. That's why videos for me hardly work in that context : you don't look at the video, you look at the light it makes around. Therefore is the Nuit Blanche a guilt trip into enjoying light and sound at night, out in the air, in dark corners, churches, window stores, gardens, old dusty historical buildings? I think so very much. Is it art? Sometimes. I remember one of the early Nuit Blanche, Alain Séchas was taking over the Palais de Versailles. It was very compelling. But I'm not sure it had to do with the Nuit Blanche itself and I gather the new look at contemporary art by the curators of Versailles had started then.
Last night, I just went around my old neighborhood Le Marais (I should post about it one day, about how it's slowly becoming soulless) where you can usually find dozens of pieces displayed around because there are so many of those old dusty historical buildings.
Nothing of note, except some sort of inflated pink ring over the Archives Nationales which makes for super cool pictures (the invasion of the alien art from Planet Crowd Pleasing?) and a lonely chair in front of gallery Yvon Lambert, which displayed in its window a video of which I don't remember the author's name nor what it was about. And yet I did sit on that chair. I guess I was too distracted by the experience...
Maybe that's why I'm still glad the event exists, first because you should always try to turn the city into a playground once in a while and second because dark corners do offer the best place for your imagination.

Labels: Alain Séchas, Art, City, le marais, Nuit Blanche, Space, urban, versailles

The Palais de Tokyo, a museum of contemporary art in Paris, has asked Dorkbot Paris to program 6 events related to their current exhibition Gakona. Inspired by Tesla works and referring to the "mysterious" military program HAARP in the Alaskan city Gakona, the exhibition presents 4 artists who are displaying work around the theme of "electricty". Since Dorkbot is about "people doing strange things with electricity", there's some sort of natural connection there and I'm thankful that the Palais de Tokyo commissioners thought about contacting us.
Thus, instead of doing an event every month or 2, we're presenting this time 6 events within 2 months. It's an ambitious program and I'm really looking forward to all the presentations and with the support of the museum, we were able as well to invite people from outside of Paris, including some MLE connections like Gary McDarby and Jonah Brucker-Cohen.
The first session is this Thursday and its theme is "Eco - energies", or the relationship between environment, technology and arts (and how to be aware of energy expenses so that eventually you can lower your electricity bill!).
Presenting works are Benjamin Cadon, Ewen Chardronnet, Dominique Leroy and Laurent LeGuyader.


-- Joëlle.

For more details (in French - sorry I don't have the courage to translate it all):

Dorkbot Paris au Palais de Tokyo - "Eco - Energies"
Jeudi 26 février 2009 à 19h30, Auditorium du Palais de Tokyo
13, avenue du Président Wilson, 75016. Métro Iéna (ligne 9)
http://www.palaisdetokyo.com/
L'entrée à cette session Dorkbot Paris est liée à l'entrée de l'exposition Gakona (Tarifs de 1EUR à 6EUR selon conditions, gratuit pour les chômeurs, moins de 18 ans et personnes handicapées). N'hésitez pas à nous contacter si vous comptez venir à plusieurs sessions Dorkbot.

Programme détaillé:

• Benjamin Cadon et Ewen Chardronnet présenteront à cette occasion le protocole de travail du Spectral Investigations Collective (SIC), travail collectif qu'ils mènent depuis 3 ans avec Bureau d'études, Ghostlab, Alejandra Perez Nunez et d'autres collaborateurs occasionnels. Le SIC enquête sur les spectres électromagnétiques tels qu'ils se manifestent dans les environnements industriels, mais également sur toutes les manifestations spectrales auxquelles il est confronté. Il met à l'épreuve la façon dont ces spectres viennent modeler, contraindre et orienter notre vie.

Pour cette rencontre, Ewen Chardronnet développera les méthodes employées par le SIC pour aborder la question des radars géants, Benjamin Cadon présentera quant à lui, des moyens pour capter des champs électromagnétiques à différentes longueurs d'ondes en l'illustrant de façon sonore et/ou visuelle (des "Very Low Frenquency" aux GHz de nos téléphones portables) et évoquera diverses utilisations "alternatives" : recherche d'énergie libre, effet van Eck, capteurs capacitifs, armes non létales, mind control et phénomènes surnaturels associés...

Liens web :
Ewen Chardronnet :
http://blog.e-ngo.org/
http://semaphore.blogs.com/semaphore/spectral_investigations_collective/

Benjamin Cadon :
http://ww.01xy.fr
http://www.labomedia.net

• Dominique Leroy est membre d'Ecos, projet transdisciplinaire qui s’appuie sur la recherche scientifique et l’action culturelle pour interroger et mettre en perspective les interactions entre technologie, écologie et économie.
Il présentera des recherches et expérimentations portées par ecos depuis 2007 :
- un projet de monnaie sociale et symbolique, occupant dans une communauté une dimension économique et culturelle : ecosXchange, initié par Siraj Izhar, est un projet de recherche en cours depuis 2007.
- des micro-expériences techniques et artistiques mettant en oeuvre différentes énergies, comme Resonating-With-Light réalisé par Edo Paulus.
http://ecos.crealab.info

• Laurent Le Guyader, électronicien négaWatteur, mesurera et mettra en évidence les consommations électriques et les champs électromagnétiques des appareils de notre quotidien. Cette intervention sera suivie d'une discussion sur le scénario négaWatt : sobriété, économies d'énergie et énergie renouvelables pour résoudre la crise énergétique à venir.
http://www.negawatt.org/

• Opendork, session libre ouverte à tous
Apportez votre projet et venez le partager avec nous au sein de l'Opendork qui clôture chaque rencontre.

Et ensuite ?
Notez d'ores et déjà la date du 5 mars, session Dorkbot "Brainwaves" qui traitera d'ondes cérébrales captées et détournées!

Les sessions suivantes auront lieu les 12 et 21 mars et les 11 et 23 avril.
On y parlera (et plus si affinités) d'expérimentations électriques qui feraient plaisir à Nikola Tesla, de réseaux DIY, de circuit bending et de récupération/création à base de "déchets" technologiques.

On y rencontrera (entre autres) Gary Mc Darby, Dominique Peysson, Horia Cosmin Samoila, Jean-Baptiste Labrune, Dana Gordon, Gijs Gieskes, Douglas Repetto, Jonah Brucker-Cohen, Katherine Moriwaki et l'équipe de Dorkbot Paris.

Labels: Art, conference, Dorkbot Paris, ecology, Exhibition, Palais de Tokyo, technology

Tomorrow, I'm leaving for London and then Sardinia. 2 weeks of vacations to empty my brain, and do nothing. The concept of vacations takes an all new meaning for the salarywoman. Up until now, except for brief periods in my life where I had been previously contract-tied to the business world, I was mixing vacations and work somehow. I wasn't really aware of that specific rhythm where you look forward to a break, as I was defining when and how I would manage my own time. Now it's imposed upon me, but I don't resent it really, at least for now. It's a different experience of pace, leisure and energy.
I have to come up with a concept for an interactive art piece in the next few weeks. I'm the artist-in-residency for the Siana festival next year, taking place in Evry, France. Of course, in the last months, my work as a designer and project director took up all my brain activity. But soon, I'll have to add to the mix artlife. For me, it's a way to get back into research mode. But after this time away from it, I'm completely out of the blue. I hear here and there sounds of what's going on, through my friends who are still in the loop but I feel like I have a lot to catch up.
The theme that I'm starting to approach for this new piece is unsurprisingly: work. And it might actually be a good lead. The festival conference has chosen to center around the subject of my DEA thesis: the imaginary of technologies. I developed in my study the subject within the context of 19th century industrial revolution, when the new technologies of that time were related to early mechanization and the transformation of the world through mass production as we know it. So it might make sense as my current life is deeply influenced at the moment by the rhythm imposed by the structure of a working day that I reflect upon this in my next project. As I empty my brain during this summer break, inspiration might come to take me further into that path or into something completely different.

--Joëlle.

Labels: Art, inspiration, Process, Work

Radio Libertaire is broadcasting on the French FM since 1981 - it's the radio of the Fédération Anarchiste, functioning as they say "without a god, without a master and without advertising" (what better would you want?). You could think it's an obscure channel, that only 23 seventy year-old anarchists listen to but its audience is actually quite decent, cosmopolitan and diverse, thanks to open, activist and indeed free-spirited programs. Even people, like me, who are not really radio listeners have a bit of affection for this atypical media (another one like that is Radio Aligre).

This Monday, 14th of January, I'm invited to chat with other people about interactive art, on the Radio Libertaire bi-weekly art show "Muzar", hosted by the curator Nathalie McGrath, between 9.30 and 11 am.
So tune in on 89.4!

With me, will be talking:
- Muriel Ryngaert, in charge of the audience and cultural policy at the MAC/VAL
- Jérôme Delormas, director of Lux Valence, and director of the future "centre Gaîté Lyrique des arts numériques et musiques actuelles"
- Stéphane Maguet, director of the digital art gallery Numeriscausa
- Antoine Schmitt, artist

Labels: Art, Chat, Interactive, Radio