CEAAC Centre Europeen d'Actions Artistiques Contemporaines

Amy Balkin, Hehe, Julien Prévieux

20 Jun - 18 Oct 2015

Amy Balkin
Public Smog, 2004 - en cours Affiche 400 x 300cm, six photographies numériques 50 x 70cm, échanges avec l’UNESCO imprimés sur papier A4 et papier en-tête dOCUMENTA 13, carte postale
Courtesy de l’artiste / Production CEAAC © Benoît Mangin
Photo : R.Görgen
AMY BALKIN, HEHE, JULIEN PRÉVIEUX
Open Source
20 June - 18 October 2015

The second part of the cycle Think global, Act local devised by COAL for CEAAC, the exhibition Open Source explores a major change in contemporary Western values.

The development of open source (a pragmatic and scattered protest trend), as evidenced and accompanied by the artists presented here, is critical of a modernity that deified the individual and glorified concepts to the detriment of their production. This posture is now widely challenged by supporters of another, more collaborative, model of society who have chosen to develop a form of participatory democracy by relinquishing copyright and promoting the reappropriation of resources, knowledge and know-how by everyone.

This sharing is an essential step in building sustainable development and a fairer, less predatory society which focuses on the common good rather than private property.

Open Source presents a set of creative practices, situated between irony and activism, which reveals the workings and excesses of our society and suggests alternative behaviors through open source and collective strength. The relocation and re-humanization of food production through an interactive video game (Art-Act); challenging Western media standards (Arctic Perspective Initiative – Matthew Biederman and Marko Peljhan) and police authority (HeHe); the request to list the Atmosphere as World Heritage (Amy Balkin), and climatic poetry 2.0. (Lauren Thorson), are all issues that the exhibition proposes to address.

However, it should not be forgotten that liberal capitalism has already demonstrated its capacity to absorb protest. Concerning these misappropriations, the artwork Anomalies built by Julien Prévieux emphasizes that a rogue form of open source can also become a form of covert unpaid work for web giants and other opportunists...

A dedicated space, built from designer furniture plans available as open source on the Internet, hosts a documentary ensemble about creative open source along with meetings and exchanges during the exhibition period.

Artists : Amy Balkin, Arctic Perspective Initiative – Matthew Biederman et Marko Peljhan, Art Act – Gaspard et Sandra Bébié-Valérian, HeHe, Julien Prévieux, Lauren Thorson
 

Tags: Amy Balkin, Li Hui, Julien Prévieux