Performance Eautopia, Sea in the bottle by French visual artist Hervé ALL
About the artist’s practice
“For me, art is the most intense way to express life with all the possibilities that World, History and Sciences can offer.” – Herve ALL
Time is central to the artist’s research. Time witnesses the formation, transformation, and deformation of things, people, and ideas.
Time is a dimension that shows by stretching the passage from the perception of reality to the image, that gives the possibility to appreciate the impermanence and the synchronicity between space and time as the source of a single reality. Hervé ALL doesn’t have any medium but he chooses to work with one at the time to reveal its own source and talk with.
About the artist’s proposal for Universal Sea
A performance with a minimum of 4 children and students (art school workshop or not), which takes place in public space, the confrontation at a crossing is a (mall, shopping street …). Each participant in the performance acts like a cog in a mechanical. The action is monotonous and ritualized. Building a relationship with our natural environment (sea) by a set of interactions with each other, performance extends to the “visitors” are the last piece of the puzzle.
Vague Rituel (Ritual Wave) is an art video lasting 2min05s, created in 2016. The film produced with support of foundation Good Planet.
“The consumer society”: The expression is often used as a critique of our capitalist society and media. In some respects, we can see the mimicry of culture with nature. In Vague Ritual, it is the mixture of nature and culture that appears as one and the same face of a play that humanity plays.
“The fever of consumption is a fever of obedience to an order not stated.”, said Pier Paolo Pasolini; Today we consume our nature as we consume a disposable pen or Hamburger. The zoos replace nature, the “reserves” replace the nature of the living by a supposed protectionism. Where does humanity go in its quest for pleasure and freedom from nature? The only way it can have, if not to backtrack, is to create another nature, a hybrid world, the fruit of the intermingling of culture with nature.
Also to join with the video I would like to offer to the Universal Sea audience a performance premier that could be conducted with 4 local students of art. Performance add is named « Eautopia, Sea In The Bottle »
Actions
Step 1 :
The 4 Performers clean their hands in a large bowl of sea salt
Step 2 :
The 4 Performers form a line
Step 3 :
Performer (P1) Scan and photocopy (A4)
an image of the sea from a book with the printer.
Step 4 :
Performer (P1) gives to Performer (P2) the photocopy A4
Step 5 :
Performer (P2) roll the photocopy A4
Step 6 :
Performer (P2) gives to Performer (P3) the rolled photocopy
Step 7 :
Performer (P3) take a plastic bottle on the floor and put the rolled photocopy into it
Step 8 :
Performer (P3) give to Performer (P4) the plastic bottle with roll photocopy
Step 9 :
Performer (P4) give the plastic bottle to a random visitor.
The performance result produces an object (a plastic bottle) to be “thrown” overboard (given to the visitors). The work thus produced is offered to the public becomes an actor: performance continues and is not “controlled”. The public materializes “the sea” where drift bottle. A picture of the perception of art as a random thing, the “thrown overboard” bottle becomes a symbol of the random and the invisible; when the object comes out and enters our field of vision and became the symbol of what unites and what separates man from nature.
How does it meet the brief for Universal Sea
Hervé ALL is considering the performance of a stretchy artistic material, the artist participates in creating and modelling, but he can also “transmit” to the viewer. He builds this performance as a generous act that invites the audience to be active in the artwork. It will be performed in places of crossing, “outside the walls” of the museum, to meet the audience who will be curious and able to participate.
In the case of “Eautopia” share the viewer with the bottle and its contents (a photocopied sea image then rolled and slid in the bottle). Then he participated to extend the performance outside the time of its pure realization: the performative object mingles with intimate time and spectator staff. This performance gives the opportunity to the viewer to experience the collective creation of a work, and to experience its extension in time through a multiple that the viewer can get and take out and which he will decide the destiny.
What conditions do you require i.e. what kind of physical environment?
The artist hopes this performance can take place in a public environment, a park, a square, a shopping mall or any place that can bring together a variety of audience.
How audience/participants engage with this piece?
The performers come to play all together at the same time (see Step1 descriptive).
Spectators can sit around the point or place of performance without going into space thereof.
They stand all around. When the first bottles will be placed on the ground, they can then move forward to bring it and leave with.
What is technical support needed?
For the sake of smooth running performance, a technician is required during the time of its development.
Technical aspect :
– 1 photocopier (allow mains connection, extension …)
– A ream of A4 paper 100 sheets (for 100 bottles)
– 100 bottles of 75cl and 1l in a transparent glass without label
– 100 caps cork at the precise diameter of the bottles.
– 1 cup (bowl type) with a capacity of 5 litres.
– 4 litres of coarse salt
– 2 bases (+/- 1-meter height, sides +/- 60cm) to stand the bowl and the photocopier.
10 ink drawings can be exposed simultaneously.
Each drawing measures 46×61 cm, landscape format.
Each drawing set a step in stage performance.
Installation drawings, 2 choices:
– In single file: with a frieze of a total size 46x 610 cm
or
– In two rows either 92×305 cm
The performers:
The four performers will dress style “urban” clothing every day.
How much time is needed to set up and take down your work?
The time required for the establishment should not exceed 30 minutes.
Does the work have a running time, timed slots, or is it durational?
Performance can stop at any time although it is interesting that a number of bottles can beings produced and distributed to the audience. The duration of the performance may be between 15 minutes and 1 hour (or more) and is repeated the same day and others, same location or many.
How many people will be travelling to perform/support this work?
2 people: Me and an assistant. (eventually, 3 performers if working with local is not possible).
BIOGRAPHY
Hervé All was born in 1976, Lyon, France.
Graduated from the Academy of fine art, Perpignan (France). Master in History of Cinema and licence in Sociology . Lives and Works in Annecy, France
Solo Shows
2016 Europa, Gallery Lite-Haus, Berlin, Germany
2016 Le Hasard Roi, Semaine du cerveau 2016, INSA, Lyon, France
2015 Le Hasard Roi, CIC Bank, Biennale de Lyon, France
2014 Solo ALL, Gallery Céline Moine, Lyon, France
2012 Oeuvres récentes, Women Lightscape and Dancing Leaves, Arthéos, Brignais, France
2012 Oeuvres récentes, Women Lightscape, Louise Della, Lyon, France
2010 Women Lightscape, Mois de la Photo Event, Gallery Artaban, Paris, France
Group Shows
2017 The Biennial Lovecraft, Providence Art Club, Providence, USA
2017 Anthropocene, Now & After Video Art Festival curated by Arnaud Brihay, CCI Fabrika, Moscow, Russia
2017 Video Art Event, IN-DUST-REAL, VIIIth édition, Oradea, Romania
2017 I Hope My Leg’s Don’t Break part II, Short film screening. A Dash , Athens, Greece
2017 Minus, Reflex collective, Athens, Greece
2017 Le Brise Glace, Annecy, France
2016 Now & After, International Film Festival, Moscow, Russia
2016 One Minute Films, The New Bohemian Gallery, MN, USA.
2016 D:Dessin, Salon du Dessin Contemporain; Galerie Céline Moine, Paris, France
2016 Art Paris, Art Fair ; Galerie l’Antichambre, Paris, France
2016 Comic Art : Fantasy and Imagination, Ann Street Gallery, Newburgh, NY, U.S.A
2016 Formes & Utopie, Megève, France
2015 Ciels, Exhibition curated by Corinne Lemprun Bret, Espace Malraux, Chambéry, France
2015 The Biennial Lovecraft, Providence Art Club, Providence, USA
2015 Anniversary Exhibition, Celine Moine Gallery , Lyon, France
2015 XXL, L’Antichambre Gallery , Chambéry, France
2014 Fan Festival, Verrieres-le-Buisson, France
2014 SeeMe, Scope Art Fair, Miami, USA
2014 L’Été Indien, Céline Moine Gallery , Lyon, France
2014 Les Miroirs Quantiques, Viv’Art, Lyon, France
2014 Biennale Saint Laurent, Musée Dauphinois, Grenoble, France
2014 Construction Works, Exhibition curated by Laurent Lacotte, L’impasse, Paris, France
2014 Mémorial Numérique, Espace Larith, Festival of first Novel, Chambéry, France
2014 « L’art est-il accessible ?», Art Center La Graineterie, Houilles, France
2013 I Really Do, Exhibition curated by Alice Marquaille, Paris, France
2013 Supernatural, Exhibition curated by Céline Moine, Paris Photo Event, Paris, France
2013 Promenons-nous dans les bois, Exhibition curated by Caroline Vacher and Bertrand Gillig, Lyinc, Lyon, France
2013 Festival du film d’artiste, Cutlog Art Fair, Paris, France
2013 Et Alors? Biennial of Contemporary Art, Lyon, France
2013 InSIGHT, Collection de la Praye, Fareins, France
2013 Cutlog Art Fair New York, USA