Programme Paris 2022

Watch out for false artists. They come to you in artists' clothing, but inwardly they are lifeless algorithms.

Igor Štromajer – "le Pavarotti du HTML" (Libération) – researches tactical media art, intimate guerrilla, and traumatic low-tech communication strategies. He has shown his work at more than two hundred fifty exhibitions in more than sixty countries (transmediale, ISEA, EMAF, SIGGRAPH, Ars Electronica Futurelab, V2_, IMPAKT, CYNETART, Manifesta, FILE, Stuttgarter Filmwinter, Hamburg Kunsthalle, ARCO, Microwave, Banff Centre, Les Rencontres Internationales, The Wrong – New Digital Art Biennale and in numerous other galleries and museums worldwide) and received a number of awards (in Frankfurt, Moscow, Hamburg, Dresden, Belfort, Madrid, Maribor, Podgorica). His projects form part of the permanent collections of the prestigious art institutions, among them Le Centre national d'art et de Culture Georges Pompidou – Musée national d’art moderne, Paris, France; the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain; Computerfinearts – net and media art collection, New York, USA; Maribor Art Gallery, Maribor, Slovenia. As a guest artist he lectures at universities and contemporary art institutes.

The film Genesis (The Other Shapes of Me) is simultaneously a part of the installation rs548049170_1_69869_TT as well as a stand-alone art film. The film documents a year-long performance during which a large piece of fabric that codifies and contains all of my genetic information is woven by my mother on one of the first computers of history, the Jacquard loom. In the tension between the loving gestures of a mother and the automatic movements of a mechanical loom, Genesis gives form to my reflections on technical reproducibility, the materiality of information, and on the interplay between biological, mechanical and computational life. The series The Other Shapes of Me is based on the translation of my genetic code into fabric. This stratified series of interrelated works is the result of my research into the origin and current applications of binary technology: from weaving to programming, algorithms, software, automation processes, up to the complete computerization of a human being.

Emilio Vavarella is an Italian artist working at the intersection of interdisciplinary art practice, theoretical research and media experimentation. His work explores the relationship between subjectivity, nonhuman creativity and technological power. It is informed by the history of conceptual art, digital and network cultures, and new media practices. Vavarella moves seamlessly between old and new media, and exploits technical errors and other unpredictabilities to reveal the logic and the hidden structures of power. Esteemed venues that have exhibited Vavarella’s work include: MAXXI – Museo nazionale delle arti del XXI secolo; KANAL – Centre Pompidou; Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg; MAMbo – Museo d’Arte Moderna di Bologna; Museum of Contemporary Art – Zagreb; Museu de Ciències Naturals of Barcelona, The Photographer’s Gallery of London, Museo de Arte de Caldas; Museo Nacional Bellas Artes in Santiago; Museu das Comunicações of Lisbon, National Art Center of Tokyo; Eyebeam Art and Technology Center and Museum of Contemporary Art Vojvodina. His artworks have been exhibited at film festivals such as Toronto’s Images Festival; Torino Film Festival, and the St. Louis International Film Festival, and at many international media art festivals, among which: EMAF – European Media Art Festival; JMAF – Japan Media Arts Festival; Stuttgarter Filmwinter – Festival for Expanded Media; BVAM – Media Art Biennale; and NYEAF – New York Electronic Arts Festival. Vavarella has been awarded numerous art prizes and grants, among which the Exibart Art Prize (2020); Italian Council award (2019); Premio Fattori Contemporaneo (2019); SIAE – Nuove Opere (2019); the NYSCA Electronic Media and Film Finishing Funds grant (2016); the Francesco Fabbri Prize for Contemporary Art (2015) and the Movin’Up Grant (2015). He has been invited to present his work at: Harvard Advanced Leadership Initiative; Istituto Italiano di Cultura – New York; ISEA – International Symposium on Electronic Arts; Goldsmiths University of London; the University of East London; the School of the Art Institute of Chicago; and SIGGRAPH. His academic writings have been published in peer-reviewed journals such as Leonardo – The Journal of the International Society of the Arts, Sciences and Technology (MIT Press), Digital Creativity (Routledge), and CITAR Journal – Journal of Science and Technology of the Arts. His writings have also appeared in Behind the Smart World: Saving, Deleting and Resurfacing Data produced by the AMRO Research Lab and in exhibition catalogues like Low Form: Imaginaries and Visions in the Age of Artificial Intelligence (MAXXI and CURA Books); That’s IT! (MAMbo), and Robot Love (Niet Normaal Foundation). His work is regularly discussed in art magazines, academic books and peer-reviewed journals, and has been covered by all major global media outlets. His most recent artist book, published by Mousse, is entitled rs548049170_1_69869_TT. Vavarella is currently working toward a PhD in Film and Visual Studies and Critical Media Practice at Harvard University and is the artist in residence of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. He holds an M.A. cum laude in Visual Arts from Iuav University of Venice, with study abroad fellowships at Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Tel Aviv and Bilgi University of Istanbul and received a B.A. cum laude in Visual, Cultural, and Media Studies from the University of Bologna.

The installation consists of two black and white video images, one video projector and two thin (2 mm) illuminated fibre lines. A large projection shows images of moving objects or people that are fixed in one place on the wall by means of a sophisticated tracking technique. This technique continuously shifts the frame of the video image in a way that the chosen object stays in one place. Thus, all movements are neutralized. Directly behind the projector a very small 4,7 inch screen shows a close-up of a moving eyeball, of which the pupil is fixed in the middle of the screen. A luminous wire is stretched across the exhibition room, between the fixed point of the projected image and the centre of the small eye pupil. The wire is a physical and stationary element in the exhibition room.

Peter Bogers’ (Netherlands, 1956) work engages the interplay of sound and image to create installation works dealing with questions around the understanding and perception of sound. Working with the themes of music, speech and sound Bogers questions the boundaries of these fields and their limits and access to communication. Through his constant interaction with sound, Bogers also examines the visual, spatial and conceptual understanding of the human body and its place within the moving image and experiential installation. Bogers was one of the first artists in the Netherlands to integrate moving image into his work. He began working with video in the 1980’s as a methodology to accompany and assist his performance work and has since developed a keen approach to the medium that functions as a tool to illuminate the otherwise imperceptible. Peter Bogers studied at the sculpture department at St. Joost Academy, Breda. He has exhibited widely and had solo exhibitions both in The Netherlands (at the Netherlands Media Art Institute and the Central Museum Utrecht, among other places) and internationally (including solo shows in Bremen, Marseille, Osnabrück, Pittsburgh and Stuttgart).

An invisible audience of software robots continually analyze content on the Internet. Political trolls and YouTube celebrities gain visibility because social media ranking algorithms promote addictive videos to the top of search and recommendation rankings. What the Robot Saw is a continuously-generated livestream film that uses contrarian algorithms to constantly curate some of the least attention-grabbing videos recently uploaded to YouTube. These videos, and their creators, are rendered largely invisible by social media algorithms. Their primary audience may be the robots that rank them. What the Robot Saw uses computer vision algorithms to curate videos and study their subjects. It focuses on first-person, camera facing narrators. The robot continually assembles its film and labels its “talking head” performers in a robo-fantastical cinematic style. The Robot titles its human subjects according to the demographically-focused feature set of Amazon Rekognition, a popular facial analysis system. In a robot-centric world, attributes like presumed age, gender, and emotion might better identify us than our names. The title is a reference to early 1900s What the Butler Saw “peep show” films. Both the butlers and the Robot got a superficial glimpse of a seductive “show;” they could not really understand the objects of their obsession.

Amy Alexander is a professor and hackernaut who has been making computationally-based art projects since the 1990s. Amy is a Professor of Computing in the Arts in the Visual Arts Department at UC San Diego. She is an algorithmic filmmaker and performer who has focused throughout her career on the fuzzy borders between media and the world. Amy’s work has frequently addressed algorithmic subjectivity in digital culture by creating transparently biased, sometimes funny alternatives. Her latest project returns to this theme — this time taking on the attention economy and social influence of algorithms used for social media rankings and facial classification. Using computer vision and machine learning-based methods of curation and production, What the Robot Saw, is a perpetual live stream that depicts the cinematic fantasy of the surveillant AI robots who “see” the social media content few humans get to experience. Amy’s art practice has spanned net art, software art, computationally-based installation, audiovisual performance, and film. Her research and practice over the years has focused on how contemporary media – from performative cinema to social media – changes along with cultural and technological shifts. Amy’s projects have been presented on the Internet, in clubs and on the street as well as in festivals and museums. She has written and lectured on software art, software as culture, and historical and contemporary audiovisual performance. She has served as a reviewer for festivals and commissions for new media art and computer music.Her recent lectures span topics including algorithmic bias and subjectivity, cultural anthropologies of gender roles in 20th and 21st century computing, and systems and disruption in 20th and 21st century media.

3050 K is an AI/Neural Net project which utilizes imagery of stage lighting (floods, spots, footlights, gels) sourced from 70 concerts and performances of rock music from the 1970’s. These images are in turn used as primary material for a Neural Net and provide the training model for the resultant imagery. The images which are generated from this process are visualizations of emergent forms and tableau which are the offspring of the original material. These images are then re-processed and provide the individual frames for a video representation of the GAN’s procedural and generative algorithmic creation. The hypnotic and somnambulant visuals are accompanied by a score I created, composed of a number of heavily processed aural artifacts from the era. The title ’3050 K’ is in reference to the average number of Kelvins used in stage and theatrical lighting.

Brad Todd is an artist whose works span several fields of inquiry, principally involving the research/creation of responsive environments which implicate technology as a mirror, filter and catalyst for experience writ large in both an individually embodied sense and its attendant broader socio-political context. Recent and past projects have focused on issues of visualizing and conditioning invisible, abstract and liminal material such as EMF, infrasonics, aggregate data and microclimates, while in other works the content is more explicit and political. Having received an M.F.A. from Concordia University (Montréal), he began playing music in the post-punk band Sofa, which released the inaugural album and single on the Constellation Records label. From the generative and reactive to the composed and performative, audio and sound design continues to play a key role in his works. Brad has received numerous grants and awards and has exhibited his works in galleries and media festivals in North America, South and Central America, Asia and Europe. Presently he is an instructor in the Design and Computation Arts program at Concordia University in Montréal.

In GAME Engine (Orange Bulletproof Kids) we are invited to an exclusive press meeting at an undisclosed location. Here, the spokesperson of a notorious game developer, presents a brand new game engine. A game engine that promises revolutionary in-game experiences, the layout of which are never fully disclosed in protection of its intellectual property value. This oral evasive manoeuvre leads the spokesperson into complex landscapes in which game and reality, body and avatar, the sensorial and the informational, blend together. Parallel to this fiction scenario, a group of CS:GO athletes are recreating their game experiences, using their bodies as vehicles for motoric and visual memory.

Soren Thilo Funder is a visual artist working primarily with video and installation. His works are mash-ups of popular fictions, cultural tropes and socio-political situations, projections and histories. They are narrative constructions insisting on new meaning forming in the thin membrane negotiating fictions from realities. Invested in written and unwritten histories, the paradoxes of societal engagement, temporal displacements and a need for new nonlinear narratives, Thilo Funder proposes spaces for awry temporal, political and recollective encounters. Soren Thilo Funder’s previous exhibitions include solo presentations at Turku Museum of Art, Museum of Contemporary Art Zagreb, Tranen Contemporary Art Center, Overgaden – Institute for Contemporary Art and Den Frie - Centre for Contemporary Art, Copenhagen. He was furthermore represented at the 19th Biennale of Sydney, eva International Biennial of Visual Art - “After The Future”, 12th Istanbul Biennial, Manifesta 8 – Parallel Events and 6th International Liverpool Biennial. He is currently doing a PhD in Artistic Research at The Art Academy - Department of Contemporary Art, University of Bergen.

A bed-bound woman's year passes as a day: her time is no longer measured by the increments of a clock but by the quality of weather outside her window. Objects emerge and merge in the gloom; the woman dissolves and reforms. Her muteness, her glaucomas and her inactivity render things indeterminate. By naming objects, animal and phenomena we reduce and delineate them, and so separate ourselves from the world around us - she cannot do this.

Peter Treherne is a moving image artist working in the South East of England. His films explore the affects of the environment, particularly weather, on agricultural and creative labour. His work is distributed by the Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Centre and Kinoscope, has been funded by Arts Council England, and has screened internationally at festivals and galleries including Festival ECRA, Whitechapel Gallery and London Institute of Contemporary Arts. Peter is also director of the Slow Film Festival, an organisation that shares moving image art with the British public in rural areas. The festival has collaborated on programmes with institutions including Close-Up Film Centre, MUBI and the British Council, and has screened work from artists including Ben Rivers, Kevin Jerome Everson, Babette Mangolte and James Benning. Peter also holds a master’s degree in Film Aesthetics from the University of Oxford.

À la suite de la disparition d'un homme en Écosse, sa fille se remémore des paroles chantées avant la nuit.

Miryam Charles est une réalisatrice, productrice et directrice de la photographie d’origine haïtienne vivant à Montréal. Elle a produit plusieurs courts et longs métrages de fiction. Elle est également la réalisatrice de plusieurs courts métrages. Ses films ont été présentés dans divers festivals au Québec et à l’international. Elle vient de compléter la réalisation de son premier long métrage Cette maison. À travers ses oeuvres, elle explore les thèmes liés à l’exil et aux effets de la colonisation.

From the diary of Christopher Columbus, October 15, 1492: "And deviated from the land by two lombard shots, there is in all these islands so much depth that one cannot reach it. These islands are very green and fertile and have very sweet airs, and there may be many things that I do not know, because I do not want to stop to go through many islands to find gold". They had only been on land for four days. The gold never existed. It is only possible to suppose the sweetness of the air. The islands are still green.

Felipe Esparza’s work creates dynamic links and tensions between film, visual arts and video creation. In his projects there is an interest in social content coexisting with an exploration of themes such as nature, the sacred, non-verbal communication, its symbolic derivations, and the relationship between image and time, image and history, and image and truth. He approaches the complex representation of these themes by developing visual narratives in which the contemporary visual imagination cohabits with archives and with local and universal cultural codes, to the point of creating pieces of metalanguage. He is currently focusing on rituals, focusing on themes such as post-colonial remains around the sacred and the raw material with which cities are built as a sensitive archaeological gesture. His videos and video installations have been shown in national art centers such as: MALI, Luis Miró Quesada, Lugar de la Memoria, Ministerio de Cultura (Lima), Festival de Lima Independiente, Festival Lima Alterna, and international ones such as: Rencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin - New Cinema and Contemporary Art, Guangzhou Image Triennial (China), Shangyuang Museum of Contemporary Art (Beijing), Videobrasil Festival (Sao Paulo), Cámara Municipal de Lisboa (Portugal), Los Angeles Film Forum, HANGAR Art Production Center (Madrid), Buenos Aires Video Art Festival, Rotterdam International Film Festival, Uppsala, Molodist, Curtocircuíto, among others. Graduated from the Master of Mal de Foco at the Centro de la Imagen (Peru), Director at the Berlinale Talent Campus and selected artist at Le Fresnoy - Studio national des arts contemporains, France.

Au coeur de Saint-Désir l'Exil se trouve une piscine. Au coeur de la piscine se trouvent les corps nocifs. A côté de la piscine, ma maman vit ses derniers instants sous le soleil.

Natacha Nisic,born in 1967 in France. Studies at Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs of Paris (1986-90) and at the Deutsche Film und Fernseh Akademie of Berlin (1989-91), and at the Fémis, Paris. Natacha Nisic continually explores the invisible, even magical relationship between images, words, interpretation, symbol and ritual. Her work interweaves links between stories, accounts of the past and the present, to reveal the complexities of the relationship between what is shown and what is hidden, the spoken and the unspoken. Her fixed and moving images function as substrata of memory, memory torn between its value as proof and its loss, and are all statements about the status of images and the possibilities of representation. She exposed in France, Japan, Italy, Germany, Spain, United Kingdom, Korea and Argentina. Her most notable personal exhibitions in Paris (France) are Haus/raus-aus (Le Plateau, Frac Ile-de-France), Effroi (Musée Zadkine), La porte de Birkenau (Mémorial de la Shoah) Nord, Carmel (Centre Georges Pompidou), and Echo (Galeries nationales du Jeu de Paume). Abroad : KW Complex (Atelier Hermès, Seoul, Korea), Trying to land (MACRO, Rome, Italy), Loop Barcelona (Dominique Fiat, Barcelone, Spain). She has participated in several group exhibitions in France and abroad, such as Regard fatigué (with Christophe Marchand-Kiss, Schloß Solitude, Stuttgart, Germany, 1998), Contemporary Utopia (Centre d’art contemporain Letton, Riga, LT, 2001), Tempered Ground (Museum of Garden History, Londres, UK, 2004), elles@centrepompidou, les artistes femmes de la collection du Mnam ( Centre Georges Pompidou, FR, 2009), Yebisu international festival for new vision tokyo (Metropolitan Museum of Photography, JP, 2010), and Immigrantes in Arte Contemporeano (Munfret, curator Diana Wechsler, Buenos Aires, AR, 2015). She won almost 10 grants, among the Arbeitstipendium (Senatsverwaltung für Wissenschaft, Forschung und Kultur, Berlin, Germany). She also stayed at the Villa Medici (Rome, Italy, 2007) and two times at the Villa Kujoyama Duo (Japan, 2001 ; 2016).

L'epoca geniale (L'époque de génie) est un film qui entre dans un lieu où la forme se mêle au lyrisme et à la magie des mouvements du corps et des regards. Les yeux s'émerveillent et se révèlent être la métaphore d'une société dans laquelle les gens souhaitent redevenir enfants. Les exercices des protagonistes n'ont rien de réaliste, mais tendent vers la théâtralité et l'imagination. Les murs de cet espace universel deviennent ainsi les témoins silencieux de ces gestes compliqués, de ces tentatives répétées à l'infini pour atteindre enfin une maturité.

Tommaso Donati (Lugano, 1988). Son travail combine une approche narrative avec le cinéma documentaire et s'articule autour du thème de la marginalité. Ses films ont été présentés dans plusieurs festivals nationaux et internationaux. Il vit et travaille actuellement à Lugano.

Au départ, il y a une simultanéité. Un fossile marin de crinoïde mis à jour près du sommet de l'Everest, un célèbre alpiniste britannique qui s’évapore et un leader russe qui s'éteint sont le point de départ d’une histoire de la transformation de la matière. Dans un vaste mouvement, les matières terrestres se brassent et se métamorphosent, les échelles et les temporalités se télescopent, et les corps humains se nichent au creux des grands processus terrestres.

Astrid de la Chapelle est une réalisatrice et une artiste française. Elle développe dans ses films des expériences autour du récit, notamment en lien avec la géologie et les circuits économiques des ressources terrestres, mais aussi de la science-fiction. Son travail se déploie au sein de l’image en mouvement, mais également dans d’autres champs comme la musique, avec le groupe Shrouded and the Dinner depuis 2012. Ses films ont été présentés entre autres au Cinéma du Réel (FR), au festival d’Oberhausen (DE), à l’ECRA Experimental Festival (BR), au FID Marseille (FR), aux Rencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin (FR/DE), au Musée d'histoire naturelle (FR), au Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature (FR)…

Un jour Arthur Rimbaud quitte le monde de la culture lassé, déçu, en colère. Il ne comprend pas, il n’admet pas les conventions, le manque de courage, le manque d’investissement du monde de l’art. « La vraie vie est absente » dit Arthur Rimbaud. Alors il part, il part dans un ailleurs qui désigne moins un lieu qu’une tension anarchique. Il recherche le hasard, l’inconnu, la rencontre, l’inattendu. Il veut maintenant pratiquer la poésie puisque personne ne peut comprendre sa poésie. Arthur Rimbaud va vivre les dix dernières années de sa vie à Harar, ville sainte d’Éthiopie (1880-1891). En 2005, je pars à Harar. Tous les jours je marche, me perds. Je ne cherche pas car rien n’est à chercher. Je filme un Harar contemporain. En 2020, je décide de faire de ces séquences un film.

Le travail de Christian Barani prend la forme d’une poésie réaliste engagée. Engagée dans une altérité improvisée, jamais recherchée. Son corps souvent perdu dans l’espace, permet de montrer un certain état du monde. Il marche, traverse, observe, ressent, analyse, il rencontre, il filme. Il se perd, il dérive pour trouver, pour provoquer et créer un lien nécessaire et essentiel à la production d’une image. Il marche durant de longues heures jusqu’à l’épuisement, jusqu’au bout de soi. La dérive le met en danger. Un danger physique et mental qui permet, qui autorise à filmer l’autre dans sa difficulté de vie, dans sa quête de survie, dans sa lutte. Ce n’est qu’à ce prix que l’accueil est possible. L’image vient comme une conséquence. Les formes issues de ces expériences n’ont pas d’a priori. Elles sont souvent diverses et prennent la forme de film, de film installation, de lecture projection, de notes photographiques et de textes. Elles se réalisent à partir du matériau capté et sont souvent pensées en fonction des espaces où elles sont exposées.

Les premières phrases pourraient nous faire penser à des bribes de conversations glânées lors d’un cocktail, on y reconnaît le tout-entreprenariat contemporain mélangé à une idéologie du management idéal. Derrière ces dialogues se révèle une réflexion sur le travail, ses contraintes et l’espace de liberté que chacun recherche à l’intérieur du cadre qu’il crée ou subit. Et les gens qui travaillent ? Parlent-ils de labeur ou d’activité, de passion ou d’horaires flexibles ? Sommes nous capables de vivre « à 300 à l’heure » et de ressentir les sensations de la même manière ? Comment la conscience que nous avons de nous-même est-elle en train d’évoluer face à cette ambition de contrôle complet de nos vies, alors que le hasard et les aléas de la vie en font souvent la saveur ?

Ariane Loze, Belgique 1988. Vit et travaille à Bruxelles, Belgique Ariane Loze étudie le développement d’une narration à partir d’images apparemment sans rapport. Dans cette série de vidéos, elle joue tous les rôles : elle est tour à tour actrice, réalisatrice et camera woman. Par le montage, ces images mettent en relation deux (ou plusieurs) personnages et l’architecture. Les videos d’Ariane Loze proposent au spectateur de prendre part à la création de la narration grâce aux principes du montage cinématographique: le champ / contre-champ, la continuité de mouvement, et la suggestion d’une narration psychologique. Le tournage de ces vidéos a été rendu public devenant donc une performance. Ariane Loze a étudié la mise-en-scène au RITCS de Bruxelles et a participé à a.pass (Advanced Performance And Scenography Studies) à Bruxelles. Elle était résidente au HISK (Institut Supérieur des Beaux-Arts) à Gand en 2016-17. Les vidéos d'Ariane Loze seront présentées au Salon de Montrouge Paris (mai 2018) et au musée d'art contemporain KANAL Centre Pompidou à Bruxelles (mai 2018). Les expositions récentes incluent Videoformes Clermont-Ferrand (2015), Traverse Vidéo Toulouse FRAC Midi-Pyrénées (2015), Medienwerkstatt Berlin (2016), S.M.A.K. Etcetera Gand (2016), Fondation Boghossian Bruxelles (2016), De Appel "You are such a curator !" Amsterdam (2016), "Kunst om de lijf" Emergent Veurne, New York Anthologie Film Archive AXW projection (2017), Watch this space Biennale # 9 Lille-Bruxelles (2017), "Gemischte Gefühle" Tempelhof Berlin (2017). Les vidéos d'Ariane Loze ont été sélectionnées pour le Prix Movimenta Video Art à Nice (2017) et le Prix Médiatine Brussels (2016) et récompensées au Art Contest Brussels (2015), par la Art For All Society de Macau (2016) et Côté Court Festival Pantin (2017).