Desk Set — CAC Brétigny — Exhibition — Slash Paris

Past: February 10 → April 28, 2018

Desk Set au CAC Brétigny — Entretien avec Céline Poulin, directrice Quatre artistes, quatre femmes — Madison Bycroft, Marvin Gaye Chetwynd, Kelly Jazvac et Ayoung Kim - composent la nouvelle exposition proposée par Céline Poulin au Centre d'art contemporain de Brétigny, Desk Set. Commissaire et directrice du centre d’art depuis bientôt deux ans, celle-ci revient avec nous sur ce projet pluridisciplinaire où art, science-fiction et technologie se rencontrent dans une démarche résolument tournée vers l’avenir.

The show “Desk Set” gathers Madison Bycroft (1987, Australia), Marvin Gaye Chetwynd (1973, United Kingdom), Kelly Jazvac (1980, Canada) and Ayoung Kim (1979, South Korea) whose own practices consist of producing knowledge and transmitting information involving affects and emotions.

“Petra Genetrix from Porosity Valley, date of birth unknown, gender non applicable. Welcome to the Immigration Data Center.” Arriving through a secret door, the machine begins to glow in the dark. Further on four women surrounded by books endlessly chatter from one door to another. The telephone rings, unheeded, once again. Sorting through microplastics, they talk about the ways of protecting oneself against human contamination. Others, sporting an octopus wig or a face crudely painted and wearing a paper costume, transform images, writing and bodies to become lyrical translators. All of them know the weight of the earth and the name of the customs. Between them and the machine the nature of emotional and objective knowledge plays out. Such is the flow that is exchanged, mutant, mute or talkative, and forever repeated, forever ritualized.

A little further along, a three-headed woman looks on, appearing to indicate different directions to go in. The choice is up to the observer, the gazes of the three heads imparting the tonality of the path to take. She is made of stone which is dripping slightly, contrasting with the group of bodies at work, dressed in Peter Pan collars, filing, sorting and stacking things at the other end of the room.

The dark makes seeing easier, although you still need to be able to pass, move in close enough to make out the precision of the criteria and decipher part of the codes. The signal is occasionally lost, the machine jams, unless it is an intentional system of encryption. By one’s wandering about, the consistency of the site—rhizomatic and hard to chart—enters the flesh; yes, eventually it should be possible to simplify it. Maybe simply sit there, next to those plastic and coral stones, on the composite slab mixed with vinyl and the blood of sacrifices. Breathing in the air they tried to sterilize—from which there arises nevertheless the smell of glue, powder and moldy earth, sewing up images and mixing the sources to produce new ones.