Precarious Identities

Not long after its inception, the World Wide Web has gone from being a new, utopian space of exchange to a laboratory for the commodification of social relations. The industrial, academic, political and artistic worlds have all experienced this transition and each has reacted in its own way. Oscillating between phases of utopia and dystopia, Internet has proved to be a place for experimentation with and the emergence and recycling of formats. These are sometimes clearly identified as artistic, sometimes marginal the art world, and sometimes break with it altogether.

From March 2011 to September 2012, Jeu de Paume’s virtual space is hosting three exhibitions questioning strategies, devices and formats, closely linked to the practices that played an essential role in the short but already rich history of the network of networks.
These exhibitions in virtual space are accompanied by events in physical space: presentations by artists, talks by theoreticians, scientists, writers, etc.

PRECARIOUS IDENTITIES
A group show on the question
of anonymity and identity
as unstable phenomena
> espace virtuel > 10 March 2010–15 September 2011

http://espacevirtuel.jeudepaume.org

The reification and encoding of all aspects of human relations – echoing the general surveillance and archiving of every last trace of our actions – also has an effect of subjective destitution. This must be linked to the themes of anonymity or the veil as identity, which themes are omnipresent on the web, and especially in artistic practices. Going beyond the question of the pseudonym or avatar, the point here is to see how strategies of unveiling or, on the contrary, the effacing of identity, can become essential to the construction of the artistic process, inasmuch as the identity of the artist is radically and critically called into question.
This is the theme of the first session, which takes the form of a group show featuring 16 artists and 19 projects: Eva and Franco Mattes aka 0100101110101101.ORG; Iocose; Les Liens Invisibles; Moddr; Aram Bartholl; Julien Levesque; La Barbe; Yes Men; Dick head man Records; Anonymous; Michael Mandiberg; Cornelia Sollfrank; Heath Bunting; Mouchette; Etoy; Luther Blissett.

> Curator: Christophe Bruno

Espace virtuel gratefully acknowledges support from
Les Amis du Jeu de Paume