Compositions Lumineuses
Generative laser, video and sound installation on a facade, 2023
Drawing his inspiration from his recent collaboration with the almost centenary Franco-Hungarian artist Vera Molnár, Joanie Lemercier presents a machine that generates minimal geometric compositions at the scale of a facade of Poblenou for this 2023 edition of LLUM.
Since 1959, Vera Molnár explored the idea of an “Imaginary Machine”, a set of logical procedures making it possible to produce images by separating the operations of design and production, which she would apply from 1968 in her use of computers.
Thus, in the manner of Vera Molnár, who often spoke of her images as “arrangements” made of simple geometric elements, Joanie Lemercier provokes an algorithmic exhaustion of forms, in search of new proposals that he could not have imagined without the intervention of the machine. However, if Vera explores the possibilities allowed with a limited number of variables, Joanie uses a more complex program (which generates both the visual composition, the sound composition, and the animation staging them) to elaborate almost infinite compositions. The public attends a staging of the process of the “factory of art”: the iterations scroll by and the machine “chooses” to stop on a random combination of elements.
The installation also resonates with the artist Sol Lewitt according to which “The idea becomes a machine that makes the art”: if the code follows a protocol that obeys variables defined by the artist, then, between the generated composition and the perceived result, where is the art? For Joanie Lemercier, the answer lies in an arrangement between what is determined by the artist (rules, protocol) and what remains undetermined (accidents, chance). While human thought can be prolific and creative, its productive capacities are limited. Making an image takes time, and the machine allows you to automate part of this process. From then on, we realize that the quality of the work – its composition, its balance, its beauty – rests entirely on the formulas and ideas imagined by the artist and communicated to a machine that only implements what it would be unable to imagine on its own. The process developed through this installation demystifies the limits of technology and is critical of the idea of a miraculous artificial intelligence, this dystopian illusion according to which a machine could ultimately “think” better than a human.
If the scale borrows from Sol Lewitt’s Wall Drawings, and their idea of a journey, of an unfolding of the composition in time, Joanie’s formal vocabulary is made of optical illusions that play with the viewer’s visual perception. This aesthetic that Joanie Lemercier has been developing for years through numerous large-scale video mapping is more unusual in the conceptual art practice of the White Cube and hopes to create a link between these two universes.
CREDITS :
Conception and visuals: Joanie Lemercier
Music: Before Tigers
STUDIO LEMERCIER
Co-direction: Juliette Bibasse
Technical Development: Martin Pirson
Production: Nicolas Roziecki
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
Carré Magique d’un trait lumineux
Joanie Lemercier & Vera Molnár
Generative laser, video and sound indoor installation, 2023
Carrés magiques de traits lumineux is a collaboration between artists Joanie Lemercier and Vera Molnár, based on the geometric compositions that the latter produced in homage to one of the most famous engraving from Albrecht Dürer.
The nearly century-old Franco-Hungarian artist, Vera Molnár, is considered one of the avant-garde of digital and algorithmic art. Very early on, she explored the idea of the “imaginary machine”, a method for generating compositions analogically by following a set of predetermined rules. As early as 1968, she used computers that allowed her to program infinite variations of geometric shapes and lines. The algorithms allow her to preview her ideas, thus putting the machine at the service of her artistic freedom.
In her work, she explores the accidents resulting from compositions produced from simple forms – lines and geometric shapes. She produced several series in homage to Dürer’s engraving “Melencolia” from 1514. This enigmatic and complex engraving by the artist and theoretician of the German Renaissance features numerous allegorical and symbolic elements of nature, beauty and artistic inspiration. On the wall, we see a “magic square”, composed of a grid whose sum is always equal to 34 when added horizontally, vertically or in diagonal.
Vera discovers the magic square in her youth and will regularly question this mysterious object in her practice by experimenting with many ways of linking the numbers together.
Starting from these compositions around the magic square, Joanie Lemercier brings them to light and in motion. He creates and animates multiple variations generated by a program: the size of the grids and lines become new variables allowing to iterate nearly infinite results from the first possibilities initiated by Vera. In a dialogue of forms and protocols between the two artists, this project prolongs the formal experiments that Vera has explored throughout her life. The computer is a tool for discovering possibilities, in a search for surprises and the unexpected.
“My life is squares, triangles, lines. I am mad about lines.” — Vera Molnár
Thus, in the manner of Vera Molnár, who often spoke of her images as “arrangements” made of simple geometric elements, Joanie Lemercier provokes an algorithmic exhaustion of forms, in search of new proposals that he could not have imagined without the intervention of the machine. However, if Vera explores the possibilities allowed with a limited number of variables, Joanie uses a more complex program (which generates both the visual composition, the sound composition, and the animation staging them) to elaborate almost infinite compositions. The public attends a staging of the process of the “factory of art”: the iterations scroll by and the machine “chooses” to stop on a random combination of elements.
The installation also resonates with the artist Sol Lewitt according to which “The idea becomes a machine that makes the art”: if the code follows a protocol that obeys variables defined by the artist, then, between the generated composition and the perceived result, where is the art? For Joanie Lemercier, the answer lies in an arrangement between what is determined by the artist (rules, protocol) and what remains undetermined (accidents, chance). While human thought can be prolific and creative, its productive capacities are limited. Making an image takes time, and the machine allows you to automate part of this process. From then on, we realize that the quality of the work – its composition, its balance, its beauty – rests entirely on the formulas and ideas imagined by the artist and communicated to a machine that only implements what it would be unable to imagine on its own. The process developed through this installation demystifies the limits of technology and is critical of the idea of a miraculous artificial intelligence, this dystopian illusion according to which a machine could ultimately “think” better than a human.
If the scale borrows from Sol Lewitt’s Wall Drawings, and their idea of a journey, of an unfolding of the composition in time, Joanie’s formal vocabulary is made of optical illusions that play with the viewer’s visual perception. This aesthetic that Joanie Lemercier has been developing for years through numerous large-scale video mapping is more unusual in the conceptual art practice of the White Cube and hopes to create a link between these two universes.
CREDITS :
Conception and visuals: Joanie Lemercier, in collaboration with Vera Molnár
STUDIO LEMERCIER :
Co-direction: Juliette Bibasse
Technical Development: Martin Pirson
Production: Nicolas Roziecki