ATTRACTION – 2017
Installation – three screens and Instagram stories – Presented at the 2017 biennale of contemporary art of Lyon, France
Attraction deals with the concepts of beauty and identity.
It re-visits the myth of Narcisse, through the angle of the power of screens, the dictatorship of appearance in the new medias that are social media.
To see and to be seen, the new way of seeing oneself and to stage one’s own image and everyday’s life. Attraction questions the importance of existing on social networks, as if life, an action, a journey only became real when validated through the screens. But, is what is shown real? The staging of everyday’s life by everybody asks this question, which truth do I show on the network? Standardized beauty, body adapted to the internet standards. The Instagram account seems to be the new resume, one’s new ID, the reflection of one’s personality, what we want others know and see of us, how we want to be perceived.
Attraction show Instagram stories, that is to say extracts of declared identities.
Three screens hung at 50 centimeters from the the ground, looking downwards, display images that reflect themselves on the floor surface. The fact that the screens are turned towards the ground gives them the power of holding the images. The reflection of the images on the ground means that we don’t look at the screen, but beyond it. The image projection becomes as the shadow of the screen.
The images are sent and placed here by people living themselves in the shadow of screens. Life is validated by the screens, it becomes important and real when it’s in the screen and seen by the network.
People visiting the show can lie under the screens to live the experience under the power of screens.