The Death and Resurrection Show

29 Septembre - 4 Novembre 2011

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Brand New Monochromes de Stefaan Quix

Stefaan Quix présente une toute nouvelle série de petits formats proposant ses compositions algorithmiques et minimalistes qu'il expose habituellement sous forme de grandes installations. Mais ici, telles des miniatures anciennes, ces petits caissons en bois cachent les dernières technologies d'affichage de dispositifs mobiles high-tech bien connus (iPod et iPad) pour nous transmettre le travail esthétique du bruit et du pixel cher à l'artiste sous une forme nouvelle, lumineuse et au rendu étonnement analogique. On est ici envoûté par la fusion du pixel pourtant constructeur en un grain sous-rétinien proche du flou du pinceau ou du velouté de l'aquarelle.

L'artiste, continuant son approche rigoureuse, explore les dispositifs les plus actuels pour nous inviter à une nouvelle lecture de son travail tout en proposant de nouveaux formats de distribution de ses oeuvres.

Artist statement

Twinning
For this showcase at IMAL I have placed together an older work, "Three Monochromes: RGB", and a newer work, "Not With A Bang But A Whimper" hoping that the audio-visual dialogue of these, at first glance diametrically opposed, works might enlighten some of the strange similarities that bind, what I consider to be, these two autopsies performed on some of the foundations of the analog and digital mediascapes.

Three Monochromes: RGB.
During the space of 4 hours an empty, black screen metamorphoses into a red (green, blue) screen. The pixel (instead of its analog counterpart the frame) is chosen as the atomic time element of this inexorable visual transformation. Together with the long duration this shows an image seemingly frozen in time but blessed with a quantum uncertainty leading it stochastically, random pixel by random pixel, random shade by random shade, to its entropic conclusion: red (green, blue)
…and once the screen has become a red (green, blue) monochrome, what else is there to do than going back to black?

Not With A Bang But A Whimper.
An electronic landscape slowly zooms out, revealing that what appeared to be abstract images is as a matter of fact an extreme close-up of a (colour) cathode ray tube showing analog noise. This seemingly black-and-white static, grayscale noise at best, when looked at closely of course emerges not only as a construct from the same three colours as Three Monochromes RGB, but furthermore its stochastic and entropic process from beginning to end is identical as well!

Occam meets Quine.
Since are speaking about the same algorithm, generating the same elementary particles at the same non-place and the same time we must conclude that we are talking about the same movie(s), the only essential difference being that one has been realized by digital means, the other by analog means; all other characteristics like the actual images are to be deemed secondary.

The Death and Resurrection Show
Times change and time changes; the last few years my obsession with loudness and bigness has given way to an interest in smaller sounds and scales.

With the iPhone's 300+ dots per inch screen (aptly christened Retina Display by its maker at Apple) the digital picture's elements have become so small and so dense that they transcend the eye's capability of perceiving them as atomic components of the digital image... already, the death of the pixel!

A surprising twist of this early demise is that compression, that bane of anyone involved with the transmission of the digital image, has now been set free of its physical chains and can be recontextualised into something altogether different: digital static.
Plus ça change... indeed.

A propos de Stefaan Quix

Stefaan Quix (1967, Brussels, Belgium) creates media artworks, sculptures, films and mixed media artworks. By applying abstraction, Quix creates work in which a fascination with the clarity of content and an uncompromising attitude towards conceptual and minimal art can be found. The work is aloof and systematic, a cool and neutral imagery is used.

His practice provides a useful set of allegorical tools for manoeuvring with a pseudo-minimalist approach in the world of media art: these meticulously planned works resound and resonate with images culled from the fantastical realm of imagination. With a subtle minimalistic approach, he creates intense personal moments masterfully created by means of rules and omissions, acceptance and refusal, luring the viewer round and round in circles.

His works sometimes radiates a cold and latent violence. At times, disconcerting beauty emerges. The inherent visual seductiveness, along with the conciseness of the exhibitions, further complicates the reception of their manifold layers of meaning. By emphasising aesthetics, he seduces the viewer into a world of ongoing equilibrium and the interval that articulates the stream of daily events. Moments are depicted that only exist to punctuate the human drama in order to clarify our existence and to find poetic meaning in everyday life.

His works doesn't reference recognisable forms. The results are deconstructed to the extent that meaning is shifted and possible interpretations become multifaceted. Stefaan Quix currently lives and works in Brussels & Paris.

texte de 500letters.org

www.quix.org