Grégoire Zabé
http://www.nobox-lab.com/
participant in
NewMediaFest’2010
Celebrate! – netart features 2010
10 Years JavaMuseum
Grégoire Zabé is an artist and a designer, post-graduate assistant in web and 3d arts at Ecole Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs in Strasbourg, France. His main interests are in collaborative cyberspaces, evolutive representation systems, internet as a dimentional and social space, individuals plunged into new media context. « Moving, instable, multiple, cross-disciplinary bodies and objects are an important source of inspiration for my work. Their meeting, juxtaposition, merging or mutation breed a dynamic setting in motion and legitimate their existence on the computer/Internet medium. Web3d induce a deep modification of our representation systems, and define a new unfinished streaming time and place for free arts, and active audience »shows and exhibitions: “vitual worlds” workshop ESAD 2002, Norapolis multimedia festival metz 2002, Laval Virtual 2002, web3Dart selection 2003, acm siggraph web3d symposium 2003, lab3d at Cornerhouse Manchester, ICA London, Folly Gallery Lancaster, Experimental Art Foundation Adelaide, Center of Contemporary Art Skopje, FILE festival sao paulo 2003, EMPYRE international mailing list june 2003, Atelier Alternatif Strasbourg 2003, “OVNI” workshop esad 2004, Norapolis multimedia Festival 2004, web3Dart selection 2005…·« animachina » and « eleo » projects ,ESP, with Eleonore Hellio [www.eternalnetwork.org], ecole des arts décoratifs de strasbourg 2002+ Co-organisation, with Pierre Bohrer [www.xzhome.com], of “virtual worlds†workshop, ecole des arts décoratifs de strasbourg 2002.·+ Presentation of “Inframonde – a participative landscape†at web3dart [www.web3dart.org], during siggraph symposium in saint malo, France, 2003, curated by Kathy Rae Huffman and prof. Karel Dudesek.+ Exposition of â€inframonde†during “LAB3D†at Cornerhouse, manchester ; ICA, london ; Watershed, Bristol (England); Experimental art fundation, Adelaide (Australia) ; Center of contemporary art, skopje (Macedonia) june 2003+ Exposition FILE at art center ‘Paço des Artes’, São Paulo City (Brazil) august 2003.·+ Participation to LavalVirtual 2003, international meeting on Virtual reality, laval, France+ “trans-portrait” selected on incident [www.incident.net],+ Invited on the international mailing list “empyre”, organised by Melinda Rackham, theorie and practice of “virtual reality”·+ Conférence “art, design and internet” during festival norapolis [www.norapolis.org] – with Fred Forest, Jules Maeght, olivier Auber. Cescom, Metz, may 2003+ Installation “transport(s)”, interactive 3d with motion capture at Atelier Alternatif, strasbourg, july 2003+ Intervention in workshop “OVNI” – école des arts décoratifs de strasbourg – 2004+ Installation “zoo – images, captivity and leisure society”, Festival Norapolis 2.0, Metz, France – may 2004·+ Selected for Web3Dart 2005 siggraph symposium with OVNI workshop 3D-performers and their Temporary Invasion Zone project.
Here is a part of my works,.they will best work on a pc with internet explorer :(.they will need free blaxxun contact plugin [www.blaxxun.com] it can be downloaded there :[http://www.blaxxun.com/download/contact/contact5/blaxxunContact51.exe]or auto-installed there :[http://developer.blaxxun.com/download/contact/install.shtml].they will also need the free realplayer plugin : [www.real.com].Eleo and virlab are using shockwave 3d plugin : [www.macromedia.com/shockwave]Animachina, food him with network flows (2001)[www.webartconcept.com/animachina]Animachina is a mutant numerical sculpture, a soft structure which is ready to collect video flows hacked over the network and decontextualised… Web tv’s, « real-time » webcams, videos are projected on the shared skin. Taken out of their original context, these video flows become abstract materials. 4 sculptures are giving different ways of comming out of the screen. A fragmented plane, 2 layers overlaping, a flexible architecture which draws out, a chaotic volume which deconstructs itself… Each time the video source folds up in accordance with distortions, meetings, fragmentations. When the « real-time » contents meets a determined support.
Eleo, an autonomous puppet (2001)[www.nobox-lab.com/eleo]Eleo is an autonomous puppet. That virtual creature knows how to escape from the puppeteer internet surfer. Of course the spectator can act and modify eleo’s travellings, but her physical properties (elasticity, friction, gravity…) generates a chain reaction that allows her to develop a random choreograhy. A small contact on eleo activates a chotic and unpredictable dance. The spectator can plunged eleo in differents gravitation states : « low » « medium » or « high » gravity will modify her reactivity.
Trans-portrait (2002)[www.nobox-lab.com/trans-portrait]Trans-portrait is a web3d experimentation about figure, reality and media. It is a multiple and unstable transcription of the archetypal artistic theme of portrait.Our relationship with medias, at least visual ones, has changed our representation systems and codes. Forms and figures are superposing, and a blurred frontier beetween informations is now installed. In this line, we also need to question again the credits accorded to our senses.In one way, it is the identity of humans that is being redefined, and we need other ways to depict the human body, inspired by image, video games and leisure culture that are surrounding us.The realvideo live, hacked from a globilzed production and decontextualized in background, and the fragmented texture of the face, are metaphorical rereadings of the palette and “touchâ€. These elements are numerical but they are not ghosts. They act on reality, making surface of screen porous.The multiple points of view are the basis of this “extended perspectiveâ€. They broke the major code of unicity. This fragmented vision is necessary, due to the position of this work, over internet, in a unaltered society of multimedia reproduction.
Inframonde, a participative landscape (2003)[www.inframonde.net]Inframonde is a cyberlandscape. It is composed of a multitude of facets, organized in a kind of tunnel. Each one of these facets is likely to collect a “photographic fragment” downloadable directly on line via the interface of the site. The idea is to constitute a “mental landscape” where the images brought by each participant amalgamate. This new space offers a kaleidoscopic perception, a fragmented vision of the world, recomposed artificially.Méso-American mythology often calls upon the image of a complex underground world, an “inframonde”. This space, unlike our hell, is a place of transition, inhabited by beings of all natures, which sail between various layers and degrees of depth, likely constantly to come back at surface, and to act on reality. Its evocation is seldom pejorative, but rather a source of exitation of imaginary of the humans. It is included/understood like a complementary space to the “real”world . This acceptance of a balance ground/basement, conscious/unconscious, real/virtual, seems to us to be an element that founds the project, like this capacity to create a collective imaginary.The interface of our project allows the transport of these individual perceptions, with an aim of creating a shared vision, through their coexistance in the inframonde. There is a real need for today creating tools which one can be adapted, transformed, on which we can modify the “source code”. There is a guiding principle brought by the project, which functions like a rule of game: the facets are organized in five groups (ground, midground, skyline, midsky, sky) which define the type of photographic fragments to install in the tunnel. Thus a participant can bring an end of ground, which will be supplemented by an end of sky brought by another or by itself. In thus rises a heterogene place, which is only one structure “to live”, and which has the capacity to be rewritten perpetually, each image being able “to be crushed” by the arrival of a new one.The integration of a chat, creating a multi-user space, also goes in the direction of a tool of cohesion, communication and experimentation.
Virlab (2003)[www.nobox-lab.com/virlab]Virlab is a web3D experimentation about viruses choreographies. It enables one to choose the protagonists of a dance, to create one’s own scene, then to impulse the “dancers” so that they develop random choreography.Viruses displacements are generated by the simulation of physical reactions (friction, elasticity, gravity, collisions). It ‘s by adding complex reactive phenomena that virlab gives a sensation of free movments. The spectActor, by his action, is adding an exterior disruptive event, and allows to escape from the linearity of animation. The sum of possible events makes the action open, alterable and alive.VIRUSWhether they are organic, moral or numerical, viruses generate a feeling of panic. That anguish, which is justifiable, but mastered with difficulty , grows in reaction to the -potential- dangerousness of contagion, to the invisibility of the “foreign body” and to the loss of integrity of the victim, to his or her deterioration.What may seem disquieting is that the exponential development of panic, after the existence of the virus has been announced , is similar to the system of viral contagion; it’s an extremely powerful psychological syndrome.Then the possibility of exploiting that syndrome is activated. The stunning awareness bred by the threat of that “virtual and exponential enemy” justfies resorting to any antivirus or remedy : best ones as well as worst ones .Is organic, moral and numerical contagion an alibi for the withdrawal of bodies and minds, for the closure of physical and virtual territories?DANCINGMoving, instable, multiple, cross-disciplinary bodies and objects are an important source of inspiration for my work. Their meeting, juxtaposition, merging or mutation breed a dynamic setting in motion and legitimate their existence on the Internet medium.Dancing as climactic field of the freedom of bodies, minds, occupied spaces. Dancing as the area of the multiple, of the interdependance. Dancing as a space of experimentation and fiction.
FICTIONIt’s above all a work of fiction. Altering and exploiting differently simulation, a tool which is meant for concrete applications, enable the artist to disrupt its traditional codes, to make his own an already connoted space, thus expressing a wish for cross-disciplines in order to disclose its machinery in a better way. That mixing of genres might lead the viewer to call into question the codes of the received information.Temporary Invasion Zone (2003)[www.esad-stg.net/ovni/perf3d]OVNI Workshop / the laboratory ( le Laboratoire ) / esad (Ecole supérieure des arts décoratifs de Strasbourg) E-PERFORMERS :Marguerite Bobey, Anahita Hekmat, Eleonore Hellio,Edwina Hoël, Lidwine Prolonge, Sandrine Molina, François Martigue,Arnaud Tanguy, Yann Weissgerber, Grégoire Zabé( projet prémédité par Grégoire Zabé – complices Eleonore Hellio & Thomas Lucas )The intention of the Temporary Invasion Zone is to invest an existing web3d community using a “troyan horse” action. All sorts of avatars are spreading out from a central “architecture” and invade, modify, disturb, divert the existing space. To the “classic” representation modes are added parasites with visual codes taken from minimal, cinetic, abstract, symbolical languages.We choose the web3d beach of “ados.fr” http://chat.ados.fr/3d community to perform our attack, because of the spatial possibilities that it was offering.To acces to this web3d community you will need a PC (works best with internet explorer :( ) and the free plugins blaxxun contact and realplayer.You can see a video of the performance on the website http://www.esad-stg.net/ovni/perf3d
Grégoire Zabé is participating in
Current Position of French Netart
Violence Channel – featured by Agricola de Cologne