27 Aug 2011

Last days of UNCERTAINTY PRINCIPLE Ecole du Magasin's project 2011

The result of an ongoing work program extending over the entire nine months of training given by the École du Magasin, the curatorial project developed by Francesca Agnesod, Nadia Barrientos, Guillaume Hervier and Andrea Rodriguez Novoa is being held in three spaces that are indissociable and unique: the virtual space zonedobsolescenceconcertee.org where the statement of curatorial intention is developed along with exchanges with the artists involved; the transitional space where boxes for archives, conveyors of fragmentary memories, are to be used by the artists; and finally the exhibition space, attesting to the extended time of presentation of what we have deliberately called the advance archives.

Entitled Principe d'incertitude (uncertainty principle), the project is inspired by the principle stated by Werner Karl Heisenberg in 1927, according to which it is impossible to know precisely both the speed and the position of a particle on a microscopic scale: Thus the properties of the material at a given instant cannot be fully appreciated. This principle, one of the pillars of quantum mechanics, is known by two different names: uncertainty principle and indeterminacy principle. In his first article, Heisenberg uses the term uncertainty, which is still the most widely used description, although it is not quite accurate; the term indeterminacy, preferred by physicists, was adopted later on. By extension, the lexical hesitation the principle is the object of reflects the difficulty encountered when it comes to defining this type of phenomenon.

We have opted to place ourselves in the space between this redoubled uncertainty and to question the present of works that can only be partially apprehended. The thoughts focusing on sets of problems associated with the appreciation of time on our website prompted us to scrutinize the ways and means of potential obsolescence that artists sooner or later come to take into account in the prospect opened up by what will become of their work. Thus, instead of observing the various deflagrations of the appearance of the work which, from its creation to its exhibition, then, using the circulation channels, from its documentation to its interpretation, are part of its passage through time, we have taken the initiative of reversing the process. We have invited Armand Behar, Santiago Cirugeda, Edith Dekyndt, Dora García and the I.I.I.I. [ Louise Hervé & Chloé Maillet ] to assemble, inside a box for archives that has been handed to them, advance archives for a work that they will not be called on to produce.

Strictly speaking, an archive relates to the preservation of a document regarded as essential which will be of interest to future generations; in fact, it anticipates a heritage whose posterity it both premeditates and legitimates. Our advance archive is established ahead of the making of a work which is not destined to be produced, and brings together fragments, traces and peripheral materials that provide information about its existence in the form of clues. So we will be not so much the spectators of a work the completion of which at a given moment interrupts its coming into being, but more the witnesses of the multiplicity of stories that its phantasm allows. Foreseeing the legitimacy of an archive: a pretext for emphasizing its precariousness and revealing its potential.

The advance archives will be presented to the public from 31 May to 4 September 2011 at the MAGASIN - Centre National d'Art Contemporain. A series of events, devised in collaboration with the invited artists, will provide the opportunity to activate the contents of the boxes on the opening day of the exhibition on 29 May. In order to give an account on-line of how the process is going in the physical space, zonedobsolescenceconcertee.org will broadcast the setting up of the exhibition live from 23 to 29 May.