Upgrade! Paris

upgrade_paris.gif

MAURICE BENAYOUN

Upgrade! Paris: MAURICE BENAYOUN, December 15th at 7:00 pm At NUMERISCAUSA gallery : 27 rue Mauconseil, 75001 Paris, 1st floor, Metro: Etienne Marcel.

Maurice Benayoun will show his work on The Mechanic of Emotions, and The Dump a blog for hypothetical projects. With Dominique Moulon, as mediator.

The Dump is a vast virtual area where I deposit my hypothetical or theoretical projects daily. Also others can dig in and extract from the Dump in order to apply the same concepts to their own projects; or accelerate the process of decomposition of unwanted items. Here, I keep the possibility to recycle, adapt and finally, rarely, to complete the act.

It is a day-to-day dump where sketches, realistically difficult projects, fuzzy concepts and fleeting visions are dumped without distinction. In the midst of daily projects, popping up concepts are often forgotten before they are materialised. They escape the undertow of memory. Why not make the concepts accessible to others who could grasp and recycle them while the possibility remains for me to revisit the projects dumped?

This liberating project, The Dump, evolves and constructs itself in the first days of this process. One discovers as much of the history of the concept itself, which is included in the first posts, as, in time, one learns of the more precise initial intentions of this project. These intentions, though, are gained only after and through The Dump's own evolution.

Maurice Benayoun's sketchy biography: He digs a tunnel under the Atlantic (1), charts the first map of the world's emotions (2) then sells these emotions as musical cocktails (3). He offers the only acceptable explanation of the imperfection of the World (4), launches a photo safari in the land of war (5), dares to ask the Big Questions (6): is God flat (7) and the Devil curved? (8). He shares his retina with everybody (9) and unveils the existence of Big Brother's sister (10). To take a break, he creates the biggest interactive exhibition on Earth (11), reshapes Europe's biggest abbey with pixels (12), introduces VR into PCs (13), reconfigures a major Paris subway station (14) and converts the Arc de Triomphe into a monument to Peace (15). And finally, he decides to put all his new projects to The Dump (16).

Upgrade! Paris sessions are organized by Incident.net. They are public and monthly. Artists, researchers, architects, theorists present during one hour their recent work. Partners : CITU, Ars Longa, The Upgrade! International.