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For each location, I create a site-specific project,

My creation system
"MEMBRANExTENSION
grows through 3 techniques:

Each module can be articulated with the others.

1 Sculpture-architecture
A plastic film weaving and adhesive tapes play with the points of structure of the place,
creating palisades, tunnels, partitions, labyrinths or membranes which make it possible to play with the circulation systems, the light, the transparency, projections of shades,
like a stained glass in three dimensions.
Hanging objects tighten the installation.

 

2 Workshops
The participants come to try out the total covering of their skin under a
second skin of cellophane and adhesive tapes. The performance produces inner trips and lasts as long as the model wants to experience it. Then the person removes
his artificial skin and can observe a facsimile of his
bodyshapes at the same time pilot envelope of the lived experiment a fragile sculpture
.
The sculpture becomes a translucent portrait.

 

3 Ritual Performance

Symbolic objects focus the energy of the action.
The body is submitted to constraints, evolves/moves through translucent constructions,
creates networks of lines through the audience.
Images evoked : metamorphosis, ceremonies,
shamanism, carcan/corset, rituel/animality



 

The Meta-Skin Project

I create a Matrix, in which people from the audience can enter.
This sculpture is a site-specific installation, the shape of which depends on the location.
It becomes a place for exchanging, meeting each other
and taking part in the evolution of the artwork, like a nomad tent.
I propose the audience to come inside to experiment light effects
and closeness to the material.
In a second approach, I propose people to get closer inside the material
and experience the Meta-Skin part of the project.

The building step and the growth of the Matrix:
adhesive tapes are fixed, unrolled, tensed, woven
to create a paradoxic architecture, both a shelter and a trap,
an intimate but transparent space.
It grows within the location, organically,
and uses only the structural points of the place (or, if necessary, wheights to tense it down).

The Metaskins:
in any place or inside the matrix, I surround a volunteer (dressed or undressed) with plastic films and adhesive tapes, according to the derm/épiderm principle. The volunteers can get a date with me through the Anti-organizers.
The volunteers wear the Meta-Skin like a new part of their own body.
The Meta-Skin promotes specific feelings (sweat, heat, rebirth experiences, new zones of body-perceptions, inner trips).
The people inside can move, go to public spaces or do whatever they want, to go as far as desired in the process.
Then I remove their chrysalis, cutting it in the back. After they got out of it, they can hold between their hands a translucent facsimile of their own skin, a flexible and fragile 3D portrait which keeps the shape of their body.

More than a body-print, it is a memory-object, a metamorphosis witness,
a haunted shape.
This empty envelope becomes a part of the installation Metaskin Matrix
or the people go back home with their personal sculpture.
A documentation of each Meta-Skin Performance is made with photographs and writings.
Audio-recordings can also document the participations.



The Meta-Skins get fixed into the growing matrix and show the evolution of the work-in-progress.

It can become a flag too, for a collective demonstration or a propaganda signal in the city,
as one's skin is the only territory one belongs to from birth to decay.

Technical needs:
- The space needs to have fixation points at a minimum height of 2,50 meters (metallic structure, pillars, etc...) and other fixation points on the ground (or a minimum of three 20 kgs wheights). I'm used to adapting the matrix to any place, but I often choose the better location according to its possibilities in terms of structural hanging points and audience placements.
- 1 ladder
- 2 chairs
- 1 table


 



The Whirling Dervish Dance Performance includes the participation of the audience
(they hold adhesive tape unrollers, and I whirl untill the whole adhesive tape is stuck to my naked chest).


 

Work in Process: actions evolving/moving over one variable duration.
In cultural event or workshops .

The insects come to town

Each day of the work in progress, I propose a different performance, a new creation,
which evolves/moves from day to day and spreads in the city like a rumour.
The successive actions explore the possible change man-insect,
using industrial materials (plastic films, adhesive tapes),
but with a building technique close to that of the weavers (insects or spiders).
The plastic rolls become"silk-producing" glands (glands of the spiders or larvae of butterfly)
which connect the objects, the bodies, architectures.
The plastics are fixed, tended, deployed, woven to create translucent membranes,
stained glasses in 3d, tunnels, second skins. The children take part very naturally in this step.


The available points of structure (pillars, balconies, trees, etc...) are located
then used to encrust my sculptures in the landscape.
The work is fragile, it can be destroyed or transformed,
and re-integrated in another action, like the always started again cobwebs.

Simultaneously with this work "in constant change", a polaroid collage witnesses the performances.

 


 

Realization of a collective performance in a crowd:

the human auras float above the body, carried by the person who created his moult.

1st day of workshop: meet, explanation of my techniques and project,
confrontation of the ideas of each one, invention of the actions to be put together on this topic
(intensive care unit, the take-off of the body in the dreams, accidents, shamanic rite , etc).
Agreement on the type of actions and symbolic object systems, available or to look for.

2nd day: construction of the auras around the body of the participants.
A first layer of cellophane covers the body like one second skin.
Then the cellophane is covered with adhesive tapes to ensure the cohesion of the unit.
Cutting out then closing of the plastic envelope.
Continuation of the discussions on the events of the scenario.

3rd day: According to the evolution of the work,
realization of the structures in iron wire and carrying systems (standard back bag or processionary spikes).

4th day: handling of the plastic skins, work on the movements, the roles, the events and the interactions with the audience.

2nd session
D-day minus 2
Gathering of the materials and ideas.
D-day minus 1
last handlings of the skins
D-day:
Realization of the collective performance (click for images)

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