Untitled (or A Talk About Not Much)

Untitled (Newspapers ongoing series)

DAILY STAR, MARCH 26, 2007, Composite digital image of overlapped pages of the one newspaper, digital print, 80x129 cm, 2007

 

THE SUN, April 19, 2007, Composite digital image of overlapped pages of the same newspapers, digital print, 80x125,4 cm, 2007

 

CCTV IN PROCESS

Stills from ‘CCTV IN PROCESS’, monitor inside a box displayed on a bracket, 2 loud speakers, 2005, a video-performance using the security-system of an Underground station. The performer interacts with the editing in real-time of 8 CCTV cameras displayed on a monitor in the station.

This action was recorded in August 2005 in the aftermath of the death Jean Charles de Menezes.

re-construction d'une colonne sans fin

detail

 An artist is tirelessly piling up plastic cups in his studio. A dispositif ‘Reconstruction d’une colonne sans fin’ re-articulates the different objects used during this absurd action. When the fragile construction breaks down, the sound suddenly echoes in the surrounding space and imposes the rhythm of the action. Like most of my works, this dispositif challenges the viewer’s perception. Through an economy of means and a simplicity in its process this mediated experience is re-contextualised to question its validity; the artist shown in the video doesn’t do anything else than repeating the same action without any expression of feelings. While in his studio Duchamps used to turn a bicycle wheel for his pleasure; it became few years later part of an assemblage, the ‘reconstruction d’une colonne sans fin’ also echoes Brancusi’s obsession of regularly recording the states of his studio as a way to think through his practice.

Detail of ‘Reconstruction of an endless column’, monitor, video camera with LCD screen, plastic coffee cups, 2004/08. (The video performance is re-staged for each new exhibition). Quimper, 2004

A Man Who Knew Too little

‘A Man Who Knew Too little’
a performative-lecture by Arnaud Moinet, a mixed media performance that includes a video projection, a screen sculpture and a few props. (27 MIN. LONG)

As a performer, I propose to react ‘live’ to a selection of pre-selected footage that is appearing beside me on screen, its sources vary between scenes of classic movies and excerpts of amateur’s found footage. The performance questions the manipulative power of these images and their editing.

If you’ve got nothing to do, Do it on stage!
Jack Smith

The Countryman's First Sight of the Animated Pictures, directed by R.W.Paul, 1901

The project borrows its form from the staging of the 1901 British comedy The Countryman's First Sight of the Animated Pictures in which a country yokel visits the cinema and confuses film and reality; he as an entertainer reacts on stage to what is appearing beside him on screen. As a performer I propose to react ‘live’ to a selection of pre-selected footage but unlike in the British comedy, the images projected in this performance aren’t particularly spectacular and don’t necessarily impress the audience for their realism. Sources of these images vary from Classic movies to Youtube videos and question in different forms and approaches our relation to moving pictures, our memory, our desires.
The editing of images being eclectic and non linear relates directly to the way one can drift in front of TV while shifting between channels or while surfing on the net and it allows the performer to constantly propose some potential scenarios and to act as a counterpoint. Bearing in mind that the performer here is proposing alternative scenarios by including himself in a self-reflective fiction; the performer questions what performance means to him in relation with cinema, with art, with TV, and what it could become considering the overflow of fast-paced images in which we are constantly immersed.
The performance itself is constructed as a sequential series of little sketches or scenes which don’t follow a linear narrative, but rather deconstruct the performance itself as much as the experience of it.

shot from the performance at Platform00000010

The attempt here is to question the conventions of art, in particular authorship and ownership, the object status of a work and its permanence, as well as the idea of amateurism and the reconsideration of the medium video after the ‘youtube’ effect.
This performance however re-uses in its structure the ingredients for a good Hollywood movie recipe : A fall, some screams, a love scene, some crying scenes, some singing (even the bad ones), some mimicry, some dancing and of course some credits in order to acknowledge my sources.
The formal devices employed are easily named: repetition, framing, alteration of syntax, all visibly manipulating that medium which is known to be highly manipulative itself.


for more info go to:
http://www.platformnortheast.org/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QULBrXiEt04

earlier photography (Black and white 35mm)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Untitled#/18 (Accident series)

Untitled#04/18 (Accident series), variable dimensions, digital print. 2007/09

"While the topical city was once constructed around the 'gate' and the 'port', teletopical  "metacity" is now reconstructed around the 'window' & the teleport, that is to say, around the screen and the time slot.No more delay, no more relief, volume is no longer the reality of things. This is now concealed in the flatness of figures. right here and now, life-size is no longer the yardstick of the real. The real is hidden in the reduction of images on the screen. Like a woman worried about putting on weight, being overweight, reality seems to apologise for having a relief, any kind of thickness. (...)"

From Open Sky by Paul Virilio

Untitled#02/18 (Accident series), variable dimensions, digital print. 2007/09

Untitled (Accident series) consists of series of 18 digital photographs with various dimensions and combined for the recollection of an 'event'. A camera witnesses the aftermath of an accident in a city recording the effervescent activity around this event. The gathering of people, the work of the police officers and the fire fighters and the momentum stop of the city flow contribute to create a series of enigmatic images. They are strange but also familiar. A fascination for a dramatic event or for a form of voyeurism that could also be found in the media is contradicted with the use of a technique that gives the impression that the actions are in fact happening in a model and therefore seem to be staged. The process of short depth of field is a technique widely used in interior design magazines as much as in Art. Through the simulation of relief, in the attempt to 're-model' and therefore to give volumes to these images, the aim is to question the various mechanisms which influence our perception of 'reality'.

Untitled#17/18 (Accident series), variable dimensions, digital print. 2007/09

Untitled#04/18 (Accident series), variable dimensions, digital print. 2007/09

still from archive footage,
unknown source Brittany 1939/45