C’est qui lui ? (“Who is that?”)
Collaboration with Paul Heintz and Fabien Zocco
10–16 September 2016
Generosityexhibition, curated by Point Contemporain, Xpo.studio
17 rue Notre-Dame de Nazareth
75003 Paris
The website www.cestquilui.fris a text-generating website that replays transcribed speech overheard from visitors to Paris’ Grévin museum.
For the opening of the XPO Gallery’sGenerosityexhibition, we collected new phrases from visitors to the Grévin museum and made them appear in real time on the website. Set against a white backdrop, these new additions were inserted amongst the replayed comments. The website was on display at XPO Gallery and accessible online from any computer with an internet connection; the site was exceptionally brought back online on Saturday, 10 September 2016 from 4pm to 7pm.
Il y a carries on from my earlier project, “Transmission”: an intervention on 20 April 2013 at Pascal Delarge’s studio in Nancy.
She sat in the center of the exhibition space during an art opening at the studio. Seated with a typewriter among the visitors, her action consisted of reproducing, in writing, speech overheard from the discussions taking place around her. Over the course of the action, she wrote six pages on which could be read a collection of splintered dialogue. The choice of this or that phrase was random: the artist tried to be objective, adhering as closely as possible to her surroundings. In the din of voices at the opening, Marianne Villière captured snippets of conversation. Sometimes it was those she was best able to distinguish—the most audible—but it might also be further-off voices that she struggled to make out. On the night of that opening in Nancy, visitors spoke of rain and sunny weather, the works in the exhibition; some congratulated the artists, others talked about how white wine from a box wasn’t bad…”
Paul Heintz