ISEA2011 SPECIAL EVENT
6×6/36: An Artist’s Book/Exhibition Project
Special Event Leader: Collectif NUNC: Cyril Thomas, Jean-Luc Soret, Clarisse Bardiot, Annick Bureaud
2nd Leader: Jean-Luc Soret
I Wish You Were Here! is a series of thematic projects put forward by the French-based Collectif NUNC (Clarisse Bardiot, Annick Bureaud, Jean-Luc Soret and Cyril Thomas) in an attempt to re-examine the relationship between print and online publishing and new ways of exhibiting art.
The I Wish You Were Here! project seeks to address three basic questions: What is the role of exhibition catalogues in the contemporary art world? How do print publications relate to actual exhibitions, and is the relationship any different in the case of online publications? How can artworks be exhibited when they can no longer be described as objects? In short, the aim is to consider how exhibition and curation can be re-defined and re-imagined in the present context.
6×6/36 is the first issue in the I Wish You Were Here! series. It consists of 6 notebooks and 6 sets of stickers designed by 36 artists, and includes a total of 144 artworks.
Both an exhibition and a publication that takes the form of 6 notebooks and sets of stickers contained in a purposely designed box, 6×6/36 explores an innovative and nomadic approach to contemporary art. Each notebook has 36 pages displaying the creations of 6 artists who share a common theme (identity, landscape, gender, mobility, utopia and viruses). Each work is printed on a sticker as a data matrix. Thus, the reader can access the artwork – or information about it– on a website via his/her smartphone or a specific application. 6×6/36 blurs the boundary between print and online publication and exhibition formats. The stickers can be peeled off and placed in a home or public place, allowing the user to design his/her own exhibition.
6×6/36 moves away from the traditional format of the gallery or museum exhibition to appropriate urban and public space, as poster designers and graffiti artists have long done. It follows the flow of data on the internet, spreading all over the city and reaching the most incongruous locations. The artist’s signature and the motif no longer have any existential value; they take second place to the online artwork.
At ISEA 2011 in Istanbul, we are launching the first notebook in the 6×6/36 series on the theme of mobility. The project will be published by Subjectile.
Bios of the Presenters
Cyril Thomas is a doctoral student at the Université Picardie Jules Verne and Telecom ParisTech (Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Télécommunications). He is a freelance journalist and freelance curator. He is a frequent contributor to the French online review poptronics.fr, as well as to four other reviews: Ciel Variable (Canada), Le Magazine du CIAC (Canada), Patch (Belgium) and Scènes (Belgium). He is working on a special issue of the French review MCD about the internet of things. As a freelance curator he is preparing three international exhibitions about digital and performance art.
Jean-Luc Soret is a photography and new media art curator at the Maison Européenne de la Photographie (MEP) in Paris. He is the artistic director and co-founder of the @rt Outsiders International Festival, an annual show devoted to works at the intersection of the arts, sciences, and technology. He is a member of the curatorial team of the European Month of Photography, a network gathering of institutions from Moscow, Bratislava, Vienna, Berlin, Luxembourg, Rome and Paris. He also collaborated with the CNES (French Space Agency) until 2006, to promote the impact of space exploration in the cultural and art fields.
Posted by: Ebru Surek