Above the Cloud takes part to “Vanishing Point”
curated by A.E. Benenson
@ Bitforms Gallery NYC
May 30 — July 19, 2013

At the birth of modern computing, a paradox: only after Alan Turing theorizes an infinitely large computer* do we begin to plausibly imagine how our world could be digitally remade as small as possible. That is, it’s only after Turing fixed our technological gaze outwards onto infinity that we began our relentless dwindling inwards, towards miniaturized circuits and virtualization. Taking this contradictory movement as both its content and form, the exhibition Vanishing Point presents views of a contemporary digital vastness that is both boundless and barely there.

By understanding computing as an ongoing experiment in the incommensurate, the artists in this exhibition draw the discipline of computing into various unlikely associations: outer-space, the afterlife, Abstract Expressionism, Greek Tragedy. And yet at the same time, there is a move to deconstruct the traditional aesthetic associations with the infinite (e.g. “the sublime”) in terms of a contemporary virtual sprawl that is often pathetically insignificant, banal and quotidian. These analytical impulses are tempered with modes of address that are more lyrical, less direct; formal experiments within the contradictions of a new vastness that is simultaneously too large and too small to be fully apprehended.

Here, “vanishing point” refers not only to the infinitely distant and small destination where everything rushes to converge, but also to a potential moment of disappearance – an event horizon where technology swallows something once and for all…what exactly – irrationality, expressivity, scarcity, suffering? Nothing in this exhibition claims to know with certainty. The objective is not to make predictions, but to press ourselves a little closer to the arc that bends towards the limit.

*the universal Turing machine, 1936

www.bitforms.com

“Above the Cloud” is an atlas about social networks archeology, death and digital footprints left in distress on the internet.

I treat this complex subject to explain it by creating a coherent object, both in its structure, its images or its layout. I play with the general idea of the atlas in which I introduce different visual languages (associations of images, illustrations, data visualization, text) to create an “atmosphere” favorable to the understanding of the subject. The result is a book-object that would have several levels of interpretation.

Most of the texts are by Jed Brubaker

Published in: Creative Applications, Pages magazine

Hardcover made of glass
170 × 240, 250 pages
ECAL / 2012

Commissioned by Library Paper #1

With Léo Wadimoff
2012

Working with archives of the FBI on the Harry Gold case.

Softcover
100 × 145mm, 68 pages
ECAL / 2012

Flyer and poster announcing the release party of WLG! 5.

A3, A6
2012

Fanzine about the underground  club scene and culture in Geneva. Published biannually, this poster is designed by Nathaniel Monjaret.

A2, folded in 5 pages, offset
2012
WE LOVE GENEVA! website

Flyer and poster for a party hosted by the almighty crew Civil Defense

2011

Book on the DSK case, edited as a theater play. Conceptually, the aim was to mix visual codes from the Commedia dell’arte with the tabloid’s one.

Soft cover with embossing, printed on newspaper paper, 270 × 380mm, 54 pages
ECAL / 2011

Evolving catlogue for the Galerie Toroni, a space for the fine art students where exhibitions change weekly. It is constitued from fragmented posters, and collected in a binder.

In a binder, 72 × 50cm, undefined number of pages
ECAL/2012

Editorial project about the Kirghiz Revolution of 2005. This project is focused on how a medium in itself can tell something about a social event.

I created almost 30 front pages of a fake Kirghiz newspaper, which evolve with time and the events. Presented as a fac-similé, the content doesn’t matter that much, it’s more the graphic evolution that narrates the Revolution.

Hard Cover, 84 pages 29.5 x 35.5 cm
ECAL / 2011