A Beginning That Takes Place Here, in the World.

Let us say, in summary, that the works belonging to the three groups — structurations, destructurations, assemblages — set in motion movements that reach the intimate nature of a stratified digital image and, beneath it, flow together into an instance located beyond what can be perceived, measured or demonstrated. But nothing prevents us — a priori — from musing on it, from reflecting on it. This instance, which we call metaphysical, corresponds — at the limit of the speculative possibilities of our reflection arising from the works — to the awakening of being, to the stock from which the artistic gesture is “gestated.”

The rapprochement between human language and computer code, from which emerges an apprehension of reality as having become intelligible without remainder¹, is in turn associated with the claim of language as original presence: “In the beginning was the Word.” The whole contributes to a representation of the functioning of reality that appears foreign from the standpoint of this research.

On the basis of the impressions and felt experiences undergone during practice, and of the consideration of works that form a family with those arising from the personal work, a position emerges regarding the fundamental functioning of the world: the world presents itself to us originally through its different forms of materiality, within a framework dominated by perception and experience.

This vision of origins recognizes the precedence of a network of agency that can be none other than that of matter itself, a primitive network from which the sensible emanates and which welcomes language, but only at a second stage. It is a matter of approaching existence while preserving, in the background, in a form of latency that may manifest itself at any moment, the rich continuity of a world liable to be constantly reinterpreted on the basis of affects.

1. A terrifying vision: “From the moment matter is no longer a given, experience is no longer a value, any more than labor, will and emancipation.”, Jean-Louis Déotte, « Les Immatériaux de Lyotard (1985) », in Appareil, op. cit.↩︎