LINEARITY’S MODULATION
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Yoan Mudry
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Yoan Mudry English
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At the beginning of this year, you presented the project Loops in Geneva
(
LOOPS
, Salle Crosnier , Geneva, 01/26 – 02/25,
Held Together With Water
,
the Commun , Geneva, 02/04 – 03/11,
The Future Is Wild
, Art Bärtschi
Gallery, Geneva, 03/23 – 05/13/2017). Three exhibition spaces, a
publication that is transformed, a performance in several acts… In the
publication, you explain the project, you talk about pieces that circulate
from one exhibition to another, recycling, evolving, changing their status.
This project made the “not definitive” side of the works and exhibits stand
out very distinctly. The Loop, the idea of a loop, was a central point rather
than a starting point, a state, or a place that we pass all the time. You
chose the image of the loop to illustrate this movement and this logic.
Why the loop as a conceptual figure?
ROXANE BOVET
In early 2017, Yoan Mudry (1990) presented a project called
Loops
which
was developed in three exhibitions in a wider temporality – 6 months, and
in three different types of spaces in Geneva – La Salle Crosnier, le
Commun, and Art Bärtschi Gallery. Without defining whether it is a single
three-part exhibition or a serie of three related exhibitions, this project
challenges the classical idea of exhibitions as a final step and works as
autonomous objects. In addition, like many of Yoan Mudry’s previous
achievements, this project directly addressed the issue of the linearity of
thought, simultaneity, multiple realities, and the construction of a
meaningful speech.
The loop is a figure, an architecture of thought, a mode of recurring
creation. I know you remember, but probably not the people reading this
conversation. One night, we watched an episode of Westworld in English
with French subtitles. We briefly stopped the episode after the word “loop”
in English was translated as “scénario”. The next morning over coffee, we
discussed this translation. It was a few weeks after that I envisioned the
project Loops. This project was born in reaction to a given situation that
seemed absurd to me: the fact of chaining three exhibitions in a space-time
particularly short and geographically close. It seemed absurd, especially
with regard to the imperative of “freshness” we ask of young artists today.
So I had a problem, because showing the same works three times in a row
in the same city does not quite match what is expected of an artist. Unless
the one working on the scenario imagines a loop that will allow them to do
so, which was my initial idea, and a way to take this imperative on the
flip side.
YOAN MUDRY
Yes, I remember that starting idea well. The external imperatives led you to
conceive the project this way. But you could also have included older pieces
or separated the different productions in a more classic way: the paintings
for the gallery, the shoes and the perfo in the Salle Crosnier, and the posters
in the Commun. It would have given three separate exhibitions. Instead, and
that’s what makes this project really interesting to me, you’ve chosen to
create another structure. A structure that both links the three exhibitions
and becomes a project in itself. What was your main interest in doing this?
Was it an interest for the structures themselves? Was it a more curatorial
decision, a willingness to question the exhibition formats? Or an interest for
new types of narration?
RB
This year, I have also often thought about the notion of “time-space” in
relation to the exhibition. In particular by working on the exhibition
Held
Together With Water
(different places, online & AFK, Jan.- March 2017) or
the online exhibition for the Museum of Post Digital Cultures
(postdigitalcultures.ch, May – August 2017). I believe that the way in which
we both put this idea into practice reflects the many transformations that
have occurred in our way of thinking. Changes that I tie to the
omnipresence of digital technologies. When you are on the internet,
whether on the screen of your computer or on someone else’s smartphone,
your movements are more spatial than physical in a sense, the duration
replaces this spatiality. I think that will change a lot of things in the future.
Notably our way of articulating ideas, objects, concepts, and designing
structures. What do you think?
RB
You’re right, it’s not a replacement, it would be rather an in-depth evolution.
In any case, nothing to do with a revolution. You talk about the complexity
of reality, I think it also complicates us as individuals, that we add layers to
ourselves as well. The digital natives don’t consider anything other than
multiplying. Not only do they multiply subjectivities, but they no longer
consider them within a binary opposition system (artist or curator, man or
woman, private or public, gallery or offspace), nor nesting like Russian dolls
(family -> MUDRY, in the town -> LAUSANNOIS, in the canton -> VAUDOIS,
in the country -> SWITZERLAND, etc). We become three, four, ten, or more
and especially at a time.
In the text I wrote for Loops, I followed with a series of questions: "How can
we tell these people stories? What is going on in their head? How are they
bored, and do they go around in circles? Is the term "discussion circles" still
relevant? Or would it be more like ellipses (because ellipses have multiple
centers)? Or a "mille-feuille discussion", like lots of circles on top of each
other?" Without really answering, does it inspire something in you?
RB
It’s interesting, you’re thinking about the social, economic, or relational
transformations caused by the internet, your conclusions or your
discoveries are always in your work. And yet, of the people I know, you’re
one of the people in our generation who uses the least social media
network, you don’t even have a smartphone. :-) Do you have another
access to this technology, do you interact with other types of online
networks? Basically, how and why do you use the internet?
RB
Like me, you grew up in a world without internet, even if it was not that for
long. For you, is there internet and real life, real life and internet next to
each other, or is it a whole? Do you have a life online and one IRL/AFK?
RB
It may be simply due to the series Westworld, but it’s interesting that you
put together the notions of “loop” and “scenario”. So far we’ve been talking
about loops but the idea of storytelling as a built narrative is something
you’ve worked on, and we’ve worked on together. You see a link or a logical
sequence between these ideas, these projects?
RB
So what you’re offering is a possibility to navigate flows and loops. What I
find interesting in this proposal is that it makes people responsible for
everything that happens. And here I use the term “responsible” in its double
meaning; firstly in the “de-infantilizing” sense, which goes against the mind-
numbing mothering that people undergo permanently; and in the sense of
“taking responsibility”, recognizing that they are partly to blame.
Responsibility understood in this double sense is, in my opinion, an essential
condition for autonomy. I think that a fundamental change – and I’m not
talking about following a new political or revolutionary leader – that a real
change cannot happen without being preceded by this individual
empowerment.
RB
It reminds me of a text by Yannick Rumpala, in which he writes that the
contemporary world has evolved with such force that it often tends to
produce a feeling of helplessness when trying to control its problematic
effects. He goes on to say that in order not to be condemned to resignation
and passive observation, we must seek to build new skills and more adapted
capabilities.
Conceptual artists of the time thought that by questioning themselves, the
art would question its context, that what one tests or invents in art can
contaminate the rest of the world.
By combining the two ideas, you can see your work as a way to learn how
to cope.
RB
In relation to this idea of a loop as a conceptual figure – as the form you
chose to reveal/illustrate the ideas you are working on – you say that the
loop is an architecture of thought, a mode of recurring creation. What do
you really mean by that?
RB
Prince brings us to another point in your practice that is definitely linked to
the loop: copying and appropriation. Why does Prince take photos from
Instagram or from less known photographers? Why does Huygues remake
Hitchcock? Why does Parreno remake an assembly line? Why does Verena
Dengler claim memes? Finally, according to you, why/how do people copy,
reproduce, appropriate, reconstitute?
RB
What does it means to have a logic of globality? It’s not the same thing than
mondialisation nor globalisation?
RB
Brian Droitcour in Society of out of Control speaks about Trecartin’s movies,
and especially the color blue in Roamie View (History Enhancement). He
says:
“Blue represent water, a substance that enable vessels to be transported
from one place to another; a substance that takes the shape of the vessels
that it is in. Blue represents the values of fluidity & adaptability; it’s in the
branding of Chase and Citybank and it’s the new spirit of capitalism.”
RB
RB
BLUE
RB
It’s an interest for all three. In fact the idea was not to create three
exhibitions, but only one. It allowed me to take more liberties, in the sense
that the exhibitions and the works did not need to be “finished”. This
allowed me not to consider the exhibition as an end in itself, but simply as a
“time”. A work comes alive in time and space, so to speak, we avoid the
question of the “cemetery of works”. For example, having “disabled” shoe
robots in the last exhibition in a gallery was a way for me to leave a clue as
to this intention. My interest in communication techniques (storytelling,
marketing, etc.) has been added to this reflection in a way in which I had to
present and link the exhibitions.
YM
Yes, I think our video A mimic Battle was, in a way, the beginning of this
project. It presented this idea that we live in narrative loops that lock us in,
but that we have created… We are trapped by the repetition of these loops
and, at the same time, if this repetition did not exist, then we would have
trouble building our identity. What interests me is that these repeated loops,
these scenarios, are constructions and that behind each construction, there
is an intention, an identifiable plan.
YM
Your question makes me think of the story of ants in “City” of Simack,
which you told me often about and that I ended up reading… What happens
when we break a loop, a cycle? Ants come out of their daily routine and end
up dominating the world… No, more concretely, there are plenty of
examples. When someone copies something, a gesture, a word, a sentence,
they form a loop. Not a circle, but a loop because they claim ownership
something that is pre-existent and now, whatever they do, they have
modified it, changed its context. That is how Richard Prince’s work justifies
itself… That is also how our society is built. And I’m not making it up, even
Steve Jobs admitted it by quoting Picasso: a good artist copies, a great
artist steals.
YM
Sky, Water, Dolfins
The Virgin Mary, cops, nobles’blood
UNO, Europa, blue helmets
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram
YM
I think that copying and appropriation are inherent to human nature. The
first cells that form an organism divide into identical cells, they reproduce.
Later, we learn to speak by integrating and reproducing the language of
those who raise us, etc. It seems to me that the whole of humanity has
been built by copying, by reproducing, I don’t think we can escape it… So,
the question would be: when do these copies become interesting? I think
it’s when there is a deformation, wanted or not, which opens a new axis of
interpretation. When the copy, the appropriation, allows us to see the
original from another angle, with a slightly shifted point of view. For
example, when Parreno re-edits a soccer match, he changes the point of
view and asks us about our way of looking at, seeing and understanding the
images. It also makes me think of a painting by Damien Hirst, that Mathieu
Copeland kept showing me when he was my tutor during my master’s
degree. (I can’t stand this painting anymore). It is a copy of Cow and
Chicken’s characters made especially for a restaurant specializing in beef
and chicken in London. I finally understood what Mathieu wanted to show
me. He wanted to show me that the copy, the appropriation, could also
become interesting and reveal its potential according to the context in
which it was placed. It finally became a fundamental in my practice.
YM
Yes. I think that’s our role. In any case, through my work, I try to make it our
role. And I don’t think that proposing “alternatives to systems” is really a
useful approach. What I mean by that is that artistic practices are part of a
system/several systems that is/are legitimized simply by being part of it. To
join the artistic system without questioning it (something I find to be vain if
done from inside), we have no other choice than to be romantic (the artistic
genius) or pragmatic (the artistic researcher)
Refusing to be romantic, I think our role is to reveal things.
YM
Yes, and this is in fact in the sense of The emancipated Viewer of Rancière
and The Death of the Author of Barthes. My thinking and my positioning
have been greatly influenced by the fact that the viewer and the author is
confused, in the sense that a work becomes a work only at the moment of
it meeting the audience While admitting that we can not totally master
what this meeting generates in terms of meaning – how people will react to
a work for example – one can nevertheless try to plunge the viewer into a
state where they become responsible for their reaction. At least, that’s
what I’m trying to do, sometimes by multiplying the layers of
interpretations. And I completely agree with you, everyone is guilty of
something, and yet, suddenly, also potentially capable…
YM
No, it’s not too early. I am currently working on a series of paintings in
which each painted image is not a collage, it comes from a single source. It
involves reworking book covers, which are “useful” books for
understanding of my “practice of the image”, and turning them into
paintings. Each canvas will have only one starting point, and will only
reference one book. The set will form a corpus of painted images.
You see, I realize that the main problem with understanding a job is the
effort put in. I mean, I have always tried to produce a work that, at first
glance, looks simple and easy to understand in order to attract the
“average” viewer. It is only after the viewer starts to study the work that
they can potentially see its complexity; when the viewer takes the “step of
seduction” and is interested in the accuracy of the work, the choices that
form the image, the text, or the setting, the “why” of this creation. This new
series plays with this, in the sense that the painted images will be “simpler”
than my previous collages, but more precise and complex as to their initial
reference.
YM
I think you’re right about the transformations. However, I don’t think the
word “replace” is the most appropriate. I do think that there is a change in
habits, but space and time are inseparable. I think that what changes
fundamentally is our relationship to reality, to different realities. The
structure of the world and our way of understanding it have become more
complex (but not that much…) because we have added layers of reality in
“depth”. We have added temporalities and spaces.
YM
As for “how to tell stories”, I think a good starting point is to look at the
techniques used in marketing. How are stories for brands made… But that
is just one of the many entry points… As for the form of our discussions, I
like the river’s flow metaphor. You can follow it, like on Facebook, it’s never
exactly the same water particle, but it’s still water. I think we chat with the
internet through discussions. It’s not really a mille-feuille, because often
older snippets of the discussion date back in the thread.
YM
That’s right, I don’t have a smartphone or social network account. However,
I frequent them regularly. You have a smartphone that you lend me when
we are traveling (-: and I have access to Zabriskie Point’s Facebook. But I do
look at many other types of social networks, in particular 4chan and also,
recently, forums on the dark net. I don’t interact, but there are interesting
articles and pictures. Almost all my practice starts on the internet. This is
the first place where I look for images, points of views, references… I try
not to fall into a too subjective outlook, in a relationship of belief, but I try to
consider this space as an immense source and neutral in its size, from
which I can freely take elements that will be useful to me later. I consider
the internet as a tool. After, if I don’t want to use a smartphone or register
on a social network under my name, it is because these tools scare me and
are produced by companies that I wish I could, in the end, completely
banish from my life.
YM
For me it’s a whole. I don’t have a private life, a life in the studio, a life at
home, a life in books, a life on the internet… I have only one life, one
personality (maybe) that unfolds and evolves in different backgrounds and
mediums.
YM
Domenico Quaranta: What’s important is not the piece in there, but the idea
out there. This idea does not manifest itself as a single object, but is most
effectively exemplified by the digital image. It is free, it travels, it gathers
metadata along the way, it can be appropriated, used, abused, perused, and
further developed. It can show up in different contexts. It’s ephemeral, but
it can survive.
Capable, yes, that’s for sure! But I don’t
think we are all equal in this regard. We
don’t all have a critical point of view or are
not able to “decode” images or speeches. It
is something that has to be learned,
something that requires practice, and a
minimum of effort. Right now this makes
me think of your next paintings. It’s too
early to talk about them?
RB
As far as I know, you tried to integrate
different types of viewers by multiplying
the types of sources in your constructed
images: from old school cartoons to
Geneva anecdotes, references to the
history of art to pop stars, etc. You
augment the places so that everyone has
an entry point… and then? The viewer does
what they want? What do you expect
of them?
RB
YM
“All that is left today is to invent innovative ways of thinking and artistic
practices that would be directly informed by Africa, South America, or Asia,
whose parameters would integrate the ways of thinking and acting in
Nunavut, Lagos, or Bulgaria. The African tradition no longer has to influence
new Dadaists in a future Zurich, nor the Japanese print to inspire the
Manets of tomorrow. Today, artists (…) have the task of considering what
would be the first truly global culture. But a paradox is attached to this
historic mission, which will have to be made against this political setting
called « globalization », and not in its wake so that this emerging culture
can be born from differences and singularities. Instead of aligning itself with
the current standardization, it will have to develop a specific fantasy and
resort to a completely different logic than that which governs capitalist
globalization.”
Nicolas Bourriaud,
Radicant: pour une esthétique de la globalisation
, 2009
→ GLOBAL THINKING
→ DOWNLOAD PDF FILE
Peter Marshall,
Demanding the impossible,
a brief history of anarchism
You also use the internet for tutorials and
DIY sites. Do you actively participate in this
exchange of knowledge – for example,
putting things online for others or
participating in forums? And if not, could
you ever imagine doing it one day?
RB
To be honest no, I’m not an ideal
contributor. But, I have a project that
regularly crosses my mind and which
integrates itself in my practice. I want to
start translating. For example, there are
several books that are not available in
French and which I seriously intend to
translate and put online… It will happen…
YM
Of course. For now it has not really
reasoned with my intentions, or stuck with
a specific project, but I consider it as much
as I plan to make a film, a play, music, etc…
YM
The internet is a resource and a tool for
you, could you also consider it as a medium
or exhibition space for your own practice? I
mean, do you imagine doing a project that
would only be visible/available online?
RB
That’s true. In this video, we analyzed storytelling techniques. The
structures and methods used were examined in contemporary
communication. They were then accentuated, pushed to excess in the idea
of revealing them. The video consists of a speech recited by a voice over in
an empty auditorium at Stanford University. We wrote the speech in a way
that it is completely meaningless, and yet very convincing and energizing.
The speech was also a loop without beginning or end. It didn’t mean
anything, even though each sentence in itself was understandable and
logically tied to the next one.
Deconstructing systems to reveal their inconsistency or showing the effects
they have on us is something you’ve been doing from the beginning. Do you
think it’s our role to reveal things?
RB