Suis-moi, je te fuis / Fuis-moi, je te suis
June 16 - August 25, 2018
Suis-moi, je te fuis / Fuis-moi, je te suis, is a collective presentation within the satellite exhibitions of the 4th International Biennale of Digital Art – BIAN. We are proud to be associated with this event, and for its curating, we entrusted Benoit Palop, a young independent curator and disciple of the Internet since the 1990s. The artists gathered in this exhibition are LaTurbo Avedon, Grégory Chatonsky, Émilie Gervais, Milutin Gubash, Lorna Mills and Sabrina Ratté, artists whose work questions our relationship to the world in a universe now defined as “post-digital”.
As a popular expression used to define a particular relational approach, the term Suis-moi, je te fuis / fuis-moi, je te suis, refers to a technique of seduction by psychological manipulation, effective as it is cruel. While drawing inspiration from this ambiguous game between two individuals, this exhibition focuses on the love / hate relationship we have with our devices and new technologies, and more specifically on its impact on our behavior, our ways of consuming, to interact, think, create and understand space, nature and architecture.
In 1964, Marshall McLuhan was already defining new media and technologies as vectors of alteration. For him, “the effects of a medium on the individual or on society depend on the change of scale that each new technology produces”. Half a century later, this trend has grown. While the technologies evolution is kicking into high gear, that the IOS operating systems are updated regularly and that the social networks and mobile applications always propose more new functionalities, the positioning of the human body in the space is questioned in a constant radical way.
This selection of moving images (GIFs, selfies, digital paintings and videos) is composed of different aesthetic approaches, creative and narrative processes, and testifies to this impact on our perception of the tangible, especially when it comes to inspiring one reality to represent another.
LATURBO AVEDON
LaTurbo Avedon is an avatar and artist originating in virtual space. Their work emphasizes the practice of nonphysical identity and authorship. Many of the works can be described as research into dimensions, deconstructions, and the explosion of forms, exploring topics of virtual authorship and the physicality of the Internet.
Her works are frequently distributed online and have been exhibited internationally, including at the Somerset House Studios, the Transmedial Festival (Berlin), the NRW Forum (Düsseldorf), the Museum Angewandte Kunst (Frankfurt), the Transfer Gallery (NYC), the Jean Albano Gallery (Chicago) and Galeries Lafayette (Paris). LaTurbo is currently artist-in-residence at Somerset House Studios.
GRÉGORY CHATONSKY
Technologies, and in particular the Internet, are an important source of reflection for Gregory Chatonsky. Shaping the paradoxes of the network and the discrepancies between its technological and existential dimensions could summarize a research that unfolds on several mediums : installation, video, photography, writing, drawing and sculpture.
His works could evoke infinite spaces in which the fragmentation of attention reigns. The network becomes a world in itself where the boundaries between technology and the human being become blurred. His practice attempts to draw the outlines of a new imaginary whose invention would be technical.
Grégory Chatonsky has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions in France, Canada and abroad, including Imprimer le monde en 2017, at the Centre Pompidou, Capture: Submersion in 2016, at Arts Santa Mònica Barcelona, Walkers: hollywood afterlives in art in 2015, Museum of the Moving Image in New York, Telofossils in 2013, at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Taipei, Misprint in 2012, at the Jeu de Paume.
ÉMILIE GERVAIS
Émilie Gervais began working with computers from an early age stating that for her it was like playing ice hockey. While still a student, Gervais began to look into the internet-based new media scene, including using Facebook as a tool, exploring the real-time imaging sharing site, Dump.fm, the participatory art site, Computers Club’s website and becoming a user of the Computer’s Club Drawing Society.
The uncompromising nature of Gervais’ work carries a strong message. Feminist artists have found a unique venue for free expression in the internet and Gervais is at the leading edge of that movement. She inverts and distorts the language and aesthetics of the primitive internet to create art that is ultimately meaningful. Working with gendered representations and power relations, Gervais applies a ’90s internet aesthetic through works like, Blinking Girls (with Sarah Weis, 2012), backdoortrojangirl.net (2012), and the HTML collection of crowd-sourced works w-h-a-t-e-v-e-r.net, where contributors upload their own work under the dictate of “boy art” or “girl art”.
MILUTIN GUBASH
It is impossible identify Milutin Gubash’s work with a specific medium as his highly multidisciplinary practice plays with narrative codes of video, sculpture, photography as much as performance.
With humor and intelligence, the artist addresses ideas of authenticity and perceptions of cultural, political and social identities. He highlights the contradictions of our capacity to construct a sense of identity whether it is through his large scale black and white photographs of Monuments to Communists, his “lamps-sculptures” created in collaboration with his family still in Serbia or through the episodes of the DIY sitcom soap-opera reality show Born Rich Getting Poorer, which predicted by a couple of years our current selfie-driven culture of continuously updated autobiographical constructions.
Milutin Gubash’s work has been widely exhibited throughout Canada, United States and Europe since 2000, including solo exhibitions at the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, the Art Gallery of Alberta and Muzej Vojvodina in Serbia among others. His video work has been shown in France, Germany, Spain, England and Mexico. A Canada-wide series of unique exhibitions in six prominent institutions was recently completed, surveying various aspects of his last ten years of practice. This ambitious series of exhibitions culminated with the publication of a monograph in 2013
LORNA MILLS
Lorna Mills is a Canadian Net.art and new media artist who is known for her digital animations, videos, and GIFs. Mills has done work in other mediums such as installations. Her work explores how “the notion of public decency is anachronistic” Her use of GIFs are gathered through the dark net which includes 4chan, pornfails, and Russian domains. She currently lives and works in Toronto, Canada.
SABRINA RATTÉ
Sabrina Ratté is a Montréal based video artist. She completed a MFA degree in the Film Production Program of Concordia University. Ratté’s video work, which has been presented internationally in galleries and festivals, explores the possibilities of mixing together a diverse array of tools and techniques, using analog signals and digital manipulations.
Her work is also inspired by the relationship between electronic music and the video image, and she often collaborates with musicians for finished pieces as well as in live settings. Parallel to her solo work, Ratté is the visual part of Le Révélateur, with the electronic music composer Roger Tellier-Craig.
Sabrina Ratté is represented by ELLEPHANT in Montréal.
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