Donatien Aubert — À propos — Slash Paris

Donatien Aubert is an artist, researcher and author. He graduated with high honors from the Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Arts de Paris-Cergy, and then conducted post-master’s research at the Laboratoire de l’Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs (EnsadLab). He was part of the Spatial Media program, specializing in the creation of virtual reality experiences and shared 3D environments. He also holds a PhD in comparative literature from the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at Sorbonne University. His thesis, written within the Labex OBVIL, deals with the re-actualization of the arts of memory (ancient techniques related to the spatialization of knowledge) in the field of human-machine interactions.

Donatien Aubert creates hybrid works: videos, interactive installations, virtual reality experiences, sculptures created by computer-assisted design and manufacturing. His artworks serve historical and epistemological inquiries by balancing forms that owe as much to the classical culture of curiosity (scientific and literate) as to that of contemporary Big Science.

Digital technologies have transformed the production, access and circulation of knowledge, opinions and aesthetic experiences: Donatien Aubert has been analyzing this epistemological, political and perceptual transition for several years now. He is particularly interested in the role cybernetics have played in the development of digital cultures. He has contextualized its influence in the transformation of conflict resolution (during the Cold War and in contemporary times); he has questioned the representation it offered of humankind and its potential obsolescence; and he has finally sought to show its importance in the reshaping of ecology as a scientific domain.

Donatien Aubert bases his artistic research on treatments that that have been strengthened by digital technologies (generativity, interactivity, immersion). His artworks hybridizes baroque and romantic aesthetics with more minimal and industrial influences.

His work has been exhibited in several biennials (Némo, Chroniques, Elektra) and has been presented internationally (Taipei, Kyoto, Moscow, Esch-Belval, Basel, Montreal, Goa). He is the winner of the CNAP photographic commission “Image 3.0” in 2020. His work was presented in a solo show at the Galerie Odile Ouizeman, in Paris, in 2021.

He has also written Vers une disparition programmatique d’Homo sapiens?, published in 2017 by Éditions Hermann, and has participated to scientific works, including L’art de la mémoire et les images mentales (2018), by Éditions du Collège de France.

Discover Donatien Aubert’s work in images