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"Augmented Palace #2", unprecedented experiences of digital art at the Grand Palais Éphémère

The "Augmented Palace #2" a precursor festival at the Grand Palais Éphémère.

© Siegfried Forster / RFI

Text by: Siegfried Forster Follow

5 mins

It is a pioneering festival, entirely devoted to artistic creation in augmented reality.

From June 17 to 19, the "Augmented Palace #2" brings together at the Grand Palais Éphémère in Paris a dozen original immersive works in large format to astonish and dazzle the general public.

State of digital art with director Roei Amit.

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RFI: You are the digital director of the immersive Grand Palais at the Réunion des musées nationaux (RMN)-Grand Palais and you designed the concept of the

Festival .

What did you learn from the first edition in 2021

Roei Amit

L’édition #1 était une sorte de « prove of concept », on a testé le concept pendant la pandémie de Covid. C’était très riche d’enseignements par rapport au travail des artistes, par exemple comment crée-t-on des œuvres à grande échelle pour un grand espace ? Et aussi par rapport à la manière dont le public a aperçu et pratiqué la présence de ces œuvres inédites. Ce succès, avec plus de 10 000 visiteurs pendant un week-end, nous a donnés envie de le refaire cette année et de rajouter certaines expériences de type « lab ».

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Have you succeeded in creating a new audience for the Grand Palais and contemporary art

We had a very large, very varied audience.

And we found that there is no technological barrier.

People were of all ages and they came in a very simple and obvious way to appropriate the use of this art through their smartphone.

Certainly, the use of the smartphone is very widespread today, and here they discovered that the artistic use of the smartphone is also very easy.

The

also draws up an inventory of knowledge and technological innovations related to digital art.

Could you give us an emblematic example

Take the work

by artists Mouawad and Laurier.

They both created a world of very poetic structures, but not just visual ones.

It is a world that reacts in real time to the different sounds emitted in the space surrounding the work.

So, if the spectator emits his own sound, this sound acts directly on the work.

The work is unique for each viewer.

It is the technological evolution that allows this type of artistic expression and that creates these works that are infinitely unique.

In

, the artist of Martinican origin Julien Creuzet, born in 1986 in Blanc-Mesnil, plays in a very original way with references to English, Portuguese, Spanish, French, but also Pan-African.

What is the link of this work with the African universe

There are two very important elements in this work.

First, it is a kind of library.

A giant removes 80 literary works on the subject from his own head.

Secondly, the dance practiced by the two giants of the work comes from African dances.

One of the giants dances the bèlè, this dance of resistance invented by slaves in Martinique.

By merging these elements in this work in augmented reality, the artist shows the artistic maturity of the approach.

Because, beyond the experimental aspect and the research on the forms, the work is also committed to the content, to ideas, concepts.

The works presented at the Augmented Palace also question the place of the spectator.

How does digital art change the relationship between artwork and viewer

Through the works presented here, we realize in a very concrete way that art always takes place in the eyes of the beholder.

Each spectator looks at his screen, his smartphone, the space of the Grand Palais Éphémère is practically empty.

With the naked eye, you can't see anything.

And when you look at what you have in your hand, the smartphone screen, you are in the presence of the works.

This creates a new type of relationship between the spectators.

One could say that in digital art, the pixels are the pigments and the screen becomes a canvas, but an interactive canvas where the artist and the visitor meet.

In the work

, the place of the spectator also changes when his avatar becomes a dancer performing choreographies by well-known choreographers such as Boris Charmatz or Abou Lagraa.

But what does it change for the creator

In

, the audience “becomes avatarized”, the spectator transforms into a very realistic avatar.

The spectator is thus inserted into the choreography of very renowned choreographers.

It's a new way of appropriating dance.

It is yet another way of exchanging traditional places and roles and how one usually acts in the space of an exhibition.

Au-delà des œuvres exposées, le

propose aussi des conférences avec des artistes, des philosophes, des professionnels de l’art contemporain et de la culture numérique. Entre autres, vous abordez le thème «

We're talking about all the resistance to worlds one could imagine.

For example, the work of Julien Creuzet speaks of a real resistance to received ideas.

And there is also the search for new forms and a new society by artists.

They try to be at the forefront of shapes and ideas.

But it's up to everyone to find their own resistance.

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