Number 76, June 2007 Cartographie Mapping

EN:

Joan Fonctuberta's latest body of work, Datascapes, is composed of two series: Orogenesis and Googlegrams. The first series was produced with software intended to produce photorealistic perspectives from topographical maps and satellite imagery. However, Fontcuberta fed the software with reproductions of artworks. The works in the second series are assemblages of thousands of small digital images, or tiles, found on the Internet through the Google search engine. All tiles in a single work responded to search criteria related to the larger composite picture. The author reads these works by Fontcuberta as instances of eternal displacements, in which the content of each image is yet another culturally produced image. As such, the content of these works continuously evades any fixed meaning and acquires significance only in the displacement itself.

FR:

Le dernier corpus d’oeuvres de David Maisel est intitulé Black Maps et regroupe cinq séries de photos aériennes prises depuis un hélicoptère. Au coeur de ces séries réside la désolation du monde naturel résultant d’interventions humaines de grande envergure. Dans sa série Terminal Mirage — reproduite ici — l’artiste a fixé son objectif sur les rives du Great Salt Lake au Utah. Lors d’une entrevue exclusive à CV ciel variable, Maisel a confié à John K. Grande les origines de sa démarche artistique et ses impressions personnelles sur les questions esthétiques et environnementales que ses oeuvres abordent.

FR:

Henry Lehmann aborde la production conceptuelle de Bill Vazan en considérant Worldline comme une oeuvre incontournable. Évoquant les pierres taillées de l’artiste, l’auteur définit la ligne comme étant un élément central de son travail. Tracée, brûlée ou sculptée, la ligne parcourt et unit tant les oeuvres conceptuelles de Vazan que les objets d’art qu’il construit. Lehmann y voit des références à l’information, à une ligne de pensée, à un geste artistique, au temps, à une forme de décoration, à un outil scientifique, à une tradition artisanale et même à un symbole platonique.

EN:

Since the end of the 1960s, Bill Vazan has been producing conceptual works in the form of urban itineraries for which he uses various modes of transportation (walking, driving, riding buses or subways). These performative endeavours result in photographic series accompanied by various written records and sketches that document his actions. The photographs always imitate the characteristics of amateur photography: imperfect cropping, reflections, unwanted interferences, and indifference to lighting conditions. This approach renders visible time and space as lived during the artist's travels. In their texts, Serge Bérard and Henry Lehman discuss the ramifications of Vazan's land art and photographic projects.

EN:

In this essay, the author looks into photographic practices of recent years that use the fluid space of the World Wide Web as their production and exhibition medium, forgoing the static quality of printed images. The text presents a selection of works from various stages in the Web's evolution and highlights the tension between the static condition of photographs and the dynamic nature of the Internet. Within the context of the World Wide Web, still images embody a certain resistance to mobility but also offer new artistic possibilities due to the Web's characteristics.