KIT BASSE DEFINITION

Nicolas ThĂŠly Lives and Works every where

« Low resolution » contexte In a context of digitalised datas, a streaming intense and excessive of images and sounds, which sensitivity is at work ?

What about this still new sensitivity appearing in young generations entering in a world where datas are shared, apparently free, downloadable, copiable… With out any awareness that this world is only in fact accessible by paying an entrance and exit right. One uses generally this expression « Low resolution » to discribe the quality of images coming from the technique of data compression. That is to say it does suppress some data in order to lighten the size of a file in order to ease its circulation on the network or it’s saving on cd, dvd, or ipod.

JPEG, MPEG et MP3 are then algorythmic acronym now far from beeing barbarian words for digital device users. To attempt to redefine in aesthetic words this particular sensitivity (soft sensitivity) belonging to the web network. One can’t strictly give a technical definition to « low résolution ». Because this expression means data circulation (texts, images, sounds), its production, its distribution, an its reception. « Low résolution » defines a single way of perceiving the world. It asks the question of the perception, and the making of data enabled by using more or less sophisticated materials, more or less home made, mainly belonging to audiovisual and data processing goods.

In this low definition context, what’s the place of art ? What’s the artist’s function ? What kind of forms should they produce ?

They are called Serge Comte, Clôde Coulpier, Camille Laurelli, Fanette Muxart, David Lefebvre, Fabrice Croux, Stéphane Sauzedde, Raphaël Charpentier, Guillaume Brissaud, Valentin Lechat, Jérémy Cortial, Emilie Besse, Séverine Gorlier, Anaëlle Pirat.

Yet they exhibit in art centers.

Clôde Coulpier & Fanette Muxart, La Grosse Sublime, 2007

in galleries,

David Lefebvre, Galerie Zurcher, Paris, september 08

in virtual galerie,

but they also perform during concerts,

Vals-Les-Bains, 26 mai 2007

in public spaces,

Serge Comte, Faire tapisserie, Métro Bercy, Ligne 14, 2006

or there.

Clôde Coulpier, The Death of effort, Université de Grenoble, 2007

2.

They are producing weak forms,

Camille Laurelli, Sans titre, 2006

on precarious supports,

Serge Comte, Fake santa claus, impression sur Kleenex, 2007

they might produce either a lot,

David Lefebvre, Nana, 2007

or nothing.

Camille Laurelli, Sans titre, 2007

They have taste for the almost nothing,

Cl么de Coulpier & Fanette Muxart, La Grosse Sublime, 2007

And on that spend a lot of time

A lot,

A lot,

A lot,

A lot,

A lot,

A lot,

A lot,

A lot,

Of time.

Serge Comte, Fanette, 2005

3.

They use the standardized web formats

http://sergecomte.free.fr

like blogs,

and My Space pages.

Their sites are more likely amateurs'publications.

Zita 2010, Skyblog

4.

They multiply their identity,

kind of masked, and hiding behind groups such : Grr端u, Renegade, The Kung Fu CowBoys, Super Polar, Antro, DJ Casquette, Trop tard, Capitaine sentiment.

They play on stage,

Ggr端 au Contest de Skate de Vals-les-Bains - 26 mai 2007

They shoot video clips

This is the Band « Trop tard »

This is the band Ggr端 with Chad, Elliott Marceau et Cyndelle Brasseur

This is Capitaine sentiment

A group matches a mood : sadness, hapiness‌.

Le groupe Super Polar

DJ Casquette

5.

All these groups are gathering under the label Dick Head Man records.

Dick, that's him.

His look is due to a drawing on an icelandic box of milk

Dhmr is a label made up by Cl么de Coulpier On the label website, you can find all bands, all their clips,

and photo albums of their performances.

Contest de Skate

Bling Bling Party

their live concerts,

in private,

but also exhibitions of by produced art pieces : fan drawings

Fanette Muxart, Fan, 2006

another fan drawings

Fabrice Croux, Captaine Sentiment, 2007

flyers and custumized radio sets.

Clôde Coulpier says « that label is a false label yet real.

False because not entering in any commercial projects.

And real because existing well and truly. »

7.

During the summer 2005, Clôde Coulpier took up his parent’s house in The Nièvre, near Nevers (at Clamecy).

The guest room became an art residency

Here Fabrice Croux with Cl么de's parents.

There are Cl么de's nephews : There a performance.

There another one over.

Cl么de Coulpier, Pop Up, 2007

This house is the Residence Minimum Exemplaire,

and this is his website.

10 others are available through the world.

This is the web site of rĂŠsidence silence,

and this is the web site of RĂŠsidence Normale.

A fictive residence is no more and no less the houses and the flats of their relatives,

In these domestic spaces, they live and they work,

Cl么de Coulpier, Vit et travaille

Alone,

with friends,

several people, in family.

The production is shown through an exhibition,

Fabrice Croux, La Meute tranquille, 2008

as photos on their blogs.

This is OUI (YES).

One of the last pieces of the puzzle.

Oui is an extra space of expérimentation…

…their art center.

A permanent building site

« OU »I from the sky means « No » in Icelandic.

Lives and works every where

analysis

Thats the permanency of domestic habits, the importance of the Internet, the several identities, work, occupation, the use of standard materials and weak forms. That could be summed up in one formula : « lives and works well everywhere ». One could requalify this sentence in aesthetic terms as follows : receptiveness and « desoeuvrement ».

Naming it « fictional », one has to understand artists’ residencies with no real legal frame, nor associative status and foreign to any artistic institutions. These residencies, investing home places, with no necessary result, and artists are free to reveal or not their creation on the internet or in an exhibition place.

Clôde Coulpier says : « we realized that we can produce an energy in the work , without having to answer for it. That watching Tv is still working. We realized that our production is abounding, an unexpected energy, entirely detached from any context or evaluation process. We self recognized ourselves. »

At the end of a first working cession in Clamecy residency, they send their production to friends, to relatives, yet also to the Tate. All their works mentioned that they had been realized within the frame work of Minimum Exemplaire Residency. « Internet is a medium which enables us to make effective what is fictional » explains Clôde Coulpier.

Internet is a key element in their artistic commitment. By investing standardized formats, social networks (My Space, Hi5, You Tube) as well as art centers and musical scenes, these young artists proclaim the power to create their own conditions for their appareances. They refuse unspoken orders. Unlike amateurs, they don't even try to do as well as artists. They act as if they were musicians, they play the artists, they don't seek famé, they don't want their practices to be perceived as art, they get rid of the usual bondages of the art world, of the obligation of results.

Consequence #1 : Relying on self publication on the web, they validate themselves, they become self-sufficient according to the classical and symbolic operations of the contemporary art world.

Consequence #2 : They are not attached to the issue of conserving their pratices.That's the culture of low définition.

That's also the idea that a piece of art might have several lives.

Clôde Coulpier says : « What happens in that kind of places, is actually the setting up of some conception of work ; one doesn’t do a lot, yet one does it fine. » They don’t care much about their institutional visibility and their position in the art world ecosystem, just like it was not their business. They participate in undefined projects which they wont’ be able to capitalize. So it seems that they implicitly express the criticism of a normative system whose vacuity they aimed at.

As a conclusion

These artists are not in any opposition to institutions. They dont look either to build a new system They don’t seek for any modelling rules from their works. Their own identifiable logic is to create their own conditions for their appearances.

Why ? They don’t think that an artist has become a content producer (for art galleries, art market, etc…). They only seek for their well being, the gravity center of their works. Many pieces evoke the issue of mood, effort and happiness. They ask themselves this question « where and how their art might dwell ? ». They don’t look neither to negociate nor to compromise. They look for free situations, free time, free space.

That’s why they are available. In philosophy, one could speak of « desoeuvrement ». That’s neither boredom, nor inactivity. That’s the power to create or not. They are still creative, even if they are not doing much or have decided to do nothing at all.

Many thanks to the artists 2010

nicolas.thely@univ-paris1.fr