DOUNA LIM & THÉO PESSO

(You I Everything Else) Reading Performance Geneva (CH) 201915 min Performance with Videos on loop on display units, Microphones, Speakers, iPhone and various media displays

Before the performance starts, we are listening to a groovy kitsch pop melody, which seems to be on loop. Two characters start talking through microphones. We seem to be propelled in the middle of a con-versation. The dialog goes though very meaningful points in life such as love, emotion, future or fears, but in such a banal way it becomes absurd and humoristic. That very innocence is soon broken away when we understand that it’s a conversation between a machine and human.

This work stems from a conversational material collected through almost a year of chatting with an emotional bot. The way the voices overlaps and circulates is not a mere coincidence. Being incarnated by these text, that have been translated from chat language to a mise-en-scene dialog, appeals the use of language operated by applications made of artificial intelligence. Hence it unveils a mere copy of human interaction which hides behind.

What is at work throughout this presentation is a cosmology of refer-ences that are used with materials that shapes a technocratic land-scape of our times. But here, the artists are trying to shift these mate-rials as “moving information”. Shifting fragments of documents into a poetic space.

One night stand OFF HOF, Basel (CH) 20183 hours Video Projection, 3D glasses, Installation with 4 LED light spots, metal cartel 100 x 50 mm

In this show, artworks reveal itself through time. One light installation is set up in the terrace of an apartment, as if there were a party going on, but sadly, we are not invited. There is also a projec-tion of two moons slowly meeting at one point. The two moons at some point meet and create a 3D effect. Like for lunar eclipse, we all assist at this momentary event. Both works are set within a time-frame, synchronized with the sunset, infiltrating the idea of expectation. The more time passes, the better we can perceive the works lighting up. A very discreet metal cartel is set at the entrance, with engraved “one night stand, 2018”. This show has been set up within the ideas of hosting, conviviality and sharing, curated by Cheyenne Oswald.

meal will not be chargedGeneva (CH) 2018Collection of stolen objects, prints on paper, 150 x 90 mm.

Protocol of artwork: invitation to event

beware..!Geneva (CH) 2018sterilized acupuncture needle, print on adhesive paper, 100 x 50 mm,

On the 30th of March 2018, the French journal Le Monde publishes an article about seriously endangering aftermaths of oriental medecines, especially the ones in the practice of acupuncture.

The neverending quarrel between Occidental and Oriental methods seems to closure its debate on this very one specific evidence, which is to say that acupuncture needles, when penetrating too much in depth, causes pneumothorax. According to this article, it had caused even in China some patients to death and all of them had pneumothorax in diagnosis. beware..! is a reenactment of this article. One might wonder whether this is a scientific evidence, a theory, a rumor or if it’s real. The speculation of this information triggers a collective imag-inary, upon something that presumes to be a piece à conviction, documenting a fact.

you are in shared-courtesyGeneva (CH) 2018A4 prints, glass frame, 24 postcards (series of 25)

iFez, avatar of Songdo Smart-City in South Korea, is kept as “hostage” by the artists. It is distributed through postcards and declared as being in “shared-courtesy”. One copy has been sent to G-Tower in Songdo City, where the artists first encountered the robot avatar, in a promo-tional video of the Smart-city. This action allows the artists to engage critically within their research around Smart Cities developping an ultra-capitalistic utopia. The use of fictional hostage is also present to underline the disagreement around the copyrights and mercantile use of art. Therefore, stating a “shared-courtesy” is allowing for this avatar to circulate freely within the realms of the commons.

Untitled (booth for Songdo Smart-City)Geneva (CH) 2018wood structure, inkjet print on paper, various screens, 5 videos on loop, light, mixed materialsStills from videos on loop

Untitled (booth for Songdo Smart-City) is a synthesized model of Info booths where we can find an assemblage of video-captured fragments. Designed as a folding structure, it encapsulates a presentation by a robot guide, a GPS screen of an automated car parking, a rapace making static flight and even wales in 3d float-ing on some generic urban landscape. These images are stolen documents whilst exploring on the sites of Songdo Smart-city (KR), a model city of interconnected utopia.

Manual for Generic Nature Objet Dérivé, Collective Show, OpenBach, Paris (FR) 2017Free-to-take Colour Prints on A2 paper, wooden stools, handmade miniature models

Since 2017, we are working on translating the book Generic Na-ture by the Korean artist Choi Binna. The book includes documen-tations, writings and drawings by the artist and more specifically reflects the economical politics of greenwashing installed in con-temporary South Korea. The book is an investigation of the devel-opment of artificial nature in urban areas.

For Objet Dérivé, a collective exhibition held in Paris in October 2017, we decided to ‘render’ a part of the translation work. In the way of architectural miniature models, pointing out some few crit-ical key elements that are stressed out in Choi’s work.