About

For a tangible image

Today's photography seems to have freed itself from its initial attachment to the representation of reality. As soon as the pixel replaced grain of silver, the medium changed in nature in the light of an industrial revolution that no one, not even Kodak, had seen coming. With it were born new practices and new actors. Opening up new, more obvious paths to implement, the visual artists rushed into the breach. Investing in both digital worlds and old processes, many have come to abandon the flatness initial of the print to express itself in new dimensions. For example produce images in volume, images that can be walked around, images that can be touched, so can we talk tangible image and by extension include in this new family everything that deviates from a classic use of the medium. We are therefore witnessing a hybridization of photography with other disciplines, which testifies to a major evolution capable of renewing the genre.

In this, photography continues to be the reflection of an era. Ours is hybrid in many areas. In art, science, industry and even politics, the times are open to many experiments favored in themselves by a global and globalized environment. Everywhere on the planet is implemented a decompartmentalization of disciplines, a technological mix from which everyone draws and combines their resources. Photography is no exception and experiments with an infinity of available means. This is how they mingle photo, 3D, video, internet, digital art and even performance resulting in multiple forms up to installation. What remains of the technique or of the initial photographic intention? Always a view of the world, but an augmented view that is much more complex to decipher. The sum of the techniques implemented promotes an approach conceptual and that is the whole contribution of visual artists who have massively invested in the discipline. This is irremediably moving away from a pure and classic practice at a time when, paradoxically, everyone can claim to be a photographer simply by using their smartphone. The only way out for so-called creative photography is therefore to accept a little of impurity, the latter considerably enriches the field of research and opens up new horizons both in terms of form and substance. As time progresses, other technologies further enrich the medium. Today artificial intelligence begins to make a place for itself and asks many questions by calling into question the role and the place of the artist. This one did not wait besides to seize it in the form of a play or sometimes of a symbolic combat between the man and the machine. Without prejudging its outcome, it remains to be hoped that by questioning the role of the creator too much, new technologies do not give birth to a neoconservative return to more traditional practices. The risk is low.

It is therefore urgent to explore, present and defend the current experimental production which is still struggling to find its place. A production that nevertheless grows and gradually invades new distribution spaces. With the arrival of new technologies, the pure and hard photographer tends to disappear as other artists have learned to invest the medium to integrate it into their creation. No wonder then that the works of this new generation are so multifaceted, carrying new approaches and aesthetics. The tangible image sometimes confuses a traditional public but also allows them to question their own certainties and to access unsuspected artistic worlds.

Dominique Clerc

Artist, curator and manager of the Plateforme venue, initiator of the BIT20 project, curator and organizer of the SPACE ODDITY Exhibition (Grand Paris Photography Month 2017) and many other projects related to contemporary art and new forms of creation . Graduated from Multimedia School in Paris.

Graduate of the Research Master of Philosophy of Art and Aesthetics from Sorbonne University. Worked in the SPAZIOTEMPORANEO art gallery in Milan, and since 2015 works in the management of Italian private art collections in the role of manager, and deals with sales and purchases of works of art.

With a Master's degree in Art Market Management, Louise Prompt has worked in an art agency as well as in physical and online art galleries. During these experiences, she acquired skills in managing artistic projects, as well as in advising collectors during the exhibitions in which she participated.

Artist, curator and manager of the Plateforme venue, initiator of the BIT20 project, curator and organizer of the SPACE ODDITY Exhibition (Grand Paris Photography Month 2017) and many other projects related to contemporary art and new forms of creation . Graduated from Multimedia School in Paris.

Graduated from the Beaux-Arts de Nantes, Art History and Cultural Management, specialist in contemporary Chinese art. After two years of experience at the Paris-Beijing Gallery, joined the team of Doors 门艺, a production and promotion agency for cultural projects based in Beijing and Paris.

Artist, curator and manager of the Plateforme venue, initiator of the BIT20 project, curator and organizer of the SPACE ODDITY Exhibition (Grand Paris Photography Month 2017) and many other projects related to contemporary art and new forms of creation . Graduated from Multimedia School in Paris.

Graduated from the Beaux-Arts de Nantes, Art History and Cultural Management, specialist in contemporary Chinese art. After two years of experience at the Paris-Beijing Gallery, joined the team of Doors 门艺, a production and promotion agency for cultural projects based in Beijing and Paris.