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PARTICIPATIVE INSTALLATION IN SITU AND ONLINE

 

Ebb and Flow, the Internet cave

         

CENTRE D’ART LE LAIT ALBI  from July  1^er to october 30  2011

GALERIE CHUSIFRITOS NEW YORK from August 6 to 27 2011

 

Poducer by Centre d’art le lait Albi

 

 

www.flux-et-reflux.net

 

 

In the 1970s, as a pioneer of video art, and media and network art, Fred Forest, who was born in 1933, ushered in the concept of sociological art. Then in the 1980s he initiated the concept of the aesthetics of communication. The ethical and aesthetic dimensions join together to put the human factor at the heart of his approach, especially through the involvement of different kinds of public in his works.

 

His project for Les Moulins Albigeois questions Plato’s cave in the Internet age. The shadows in Plato’s allegory are transposedin contemporary forms, by a  staged presentation of the public strolling about accompanied by their shadows, with texts and video projections operating alternately. Other shadows and participations arrive through the network of Internet connections in the world.

         

To participate, meeting on the website : http://www.flux-et-reflux.net

 

A connection kit, in the form of a minimal recording studio and a user’s manual is proposed to the 120 French Institutes throughout the world, in conjunction with the French Institute in Paris, as well as other venues, such as the Fred Forest exhibitions currently on view in New York and Sao Paulo. A twofold network is thus activated, by the physical presence of the visitors in the exhibition at Les Moulins and by the virtual presence of connected publics.

 

Fred Forest is at work on a gigantic worldwide network, whose virtual and real participants give shape to the show, connection by connection. The artist has devised his project like a screenplay whoseparticipating casts make the film by constantly renewing it. This collective work is a metaphor of a democratic dynamic. A journey like an initiatory plunge into the belly of a society hallmarked by information.

 

Manuela Manzini, associated artist, set design

Christian Valézy, associate artist, sound and image

Pierre Jean Grattenois, Designer and producer

Frederic Jean Développement

Muriel Edet Communication

Guillaume Rozan Régie

Fabrice Lapeyre  informatique

 

Curator: Jackie-Ruth Meyer

 

Moulins Albigeois – 41 rue Porta – 81000 Albi. (France)

Open from Wednesday to Sunday from 2-7 pm. Closed on Monday, Tuesday and holidays.