Selma LepartR.E.D
© S. Lepart, 2013
Residency
September 20 – December 15, 2013
Artist Talk
November 21, 2013 at 5 pm
As part of the France-Québec – Digital Arts exchange residencies program
In collaboration with the CALQ and the Institut français
This installation considers the creation of mobile and communicating geometric shapes. Triangular shapes, regularly arranged on a wall or ground surface, form a graphic modulation that reacts to the presence of the public.
As the vertex of each triangle rises, it gives the impression that we are standing before an organic surface, a skin reacting to our presence. The surface vibrates, slackens, stirs, twitches, shudders. Not a puff of air and yet… This skin-material seems capable of emotions.
After a first look, the public imagines the process at work. This surface decodes its environment, translates it into quantifiable terms, and reacts accordingly. Yet the mechanism is more subtle and less automatic than it appears. Restricted to the perimeter of its frame and to its angles, this entity gives the impression of controlling its space as well as it can.
This electrodermal response to the stimuli of our movements appears like the marker of a controlled or impulsive vigilance. Our presence is at once the trigger and the sounder of an emotional state.
© S. Lepart, 2013
Visual artist Selma Lepart has a degree from the École Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs of Strasbourg, France. Her interdisciplinary work includes drawing, multimedia, sculpture, and video. In her work, she uses material or techniques drawn from computer science, physics, chemistry (the ferrofluid used to create Mercure Noir and Esquive), and even nanotechnology (Re-gard). She regularly collaborates with several laboratories from Montpellier. In recent years, she was given a studio and had the opportunity to work at Montpellier 2 University.
