15 Jun 2011

'Augmented Window' at Centre Pompidou / Futur en Seine

Directed and curated by Thierry Fournier, 'Augmented Window' is a sensory observatory. Different artists and authors have been invited to produce a critical reading or original work on the landscape itself. Each contribution is geo-localized and presented on a touch-screen window that looks out onto a landscape that is simultaneously displayed as a live video feed on the window itself.

'Augmented Window' is premiered within the Futur en Seine Festival, at Centre Pompidou (17-26 June 2011). For this first edition, 16 artists and authors will address the Halles district of Paris: Benjamin Laurent Aman, Ivan Argote, Christelle Bakhache et Clement Feger, David Beytelmann, Marie-Julie Bourgeois, Pierre Carniaux, Celine Flecheux, Juliette Fontaine, Thierry Fournier, Marie Husson, Tomek Jarolim, Je Suis Le Petit Chevalier / Felicia Atkinson, Pascal Mazoyer, Jean-Francois Robardet, Marcos Serrano, Antoine Schmitt. This first edition is co-curated by Thierry Fournier, Jean-Francois Robardet and Gregory Diguet, under the direction of Thierry Fournier.

The observed landscape is the starting point for these contributions, from the critical approaches and questions it raises to the very modes of observation it evokes: immersion vs. distancing, surveillance, geo-localization, etc. Invited contributors produce these readings either while exploring the landscape in situ with a smartphone, or remotely via a dedicated website. The screen acts like a window, framing the landscape as a real-time video. By zooming in and scanning the window intuitively through touch, visitors explore the different contributions, comparing and contrasting them. The choice of a fixed and vertical frame favors rich and comprehensive interactions via a sensory experience.

'Augmented Window' thus produces a curatorial, collective and prospective representation of a landscape, where typically separated approaches (art, geography, architecture, documentary, fiction…) overlap in a common critical perspective, implemented through the principles of 'augmented reality'. In this sense, augmented reality is not addressed here in terms of immersion or additional layers of information, but rather questioned as a possible means for creating a field of tension between different points of view.

The project was the subject of a research coordinated by Thierry Fournier at the research laboratory of the Ecole nationale superieure des Arts Decoratifs de Paris (EnsadLab, Drii program, 'Surfaces Sensibles'). It has been developed in partnership with the Sciences Po Medialab. After this first exhibition, the project will produce a second edition that will be permantently installed in a mountainous natural location, in the Languedoc-Roussillon region.

More info: www.thierryfournier.net | www.futur-en-seine.fr | www.centrepompidou.fr