Catalogue > At random

Dholera reveals the dystopian vision of this eponymous city, envisioned in the desert-like landscape of the Indian state of Gujarat. The city’s vast network of highways, elevated railways, electric pylons and water towers extend as far as the eye can see on an arid terrain devoid of vegetation, swept through by dust whirlwinds. This vast urban project— for which ground was broken over a decade ago—has now come to a virtual standstill. In-situ footage captured via drone reveals the enormity of this unfinished project through the virtual implantation of certain symbolic buildings featured in the initial project, through the use of point clouds. The ghost of Dholera city is brought forth through the film; a phantom construction site where future ruins create cracks in the very idea of utopia.

Pierre Jean Giloux, born in 1965, was awarded the Villa Kujoyama residency in Kyoto in 2015 and received the Grand Prix for Video Art at the Côté Court Festival in Pantin in 2016. Working in a form of augmented reality, he presents his installations in museums and art centres such as the Museum of Botany in Brussels, La Criée – Centre for Contemporary Art in Rennes, the Barbican in London, the Hiroshima MoMA and the National Museum of Osaka in Japan, as well as in galleries including DNA (Berlin), Sophie Scheidecker and Christophe Gaillard (Paris), Cristina Guerra (Lisbon) and Bank MABsociety (Shanghai). His works are held in private collections (in Paris, Rennes, Brussels and Tokyo, as well as the Pierre Darier Collection in Switzerland and the An-Sammlung in Munich) and in public collections (Fonds d’art contemporain – Paris Collection and the City of Marseille).