PCA Talks Series

A publisher and printmaker in Paris, Michael Woolworth has built projects with hundreds of contemporary artists (Gunter Damisch, Marc Desgrandchamps, Jim Dine and Bertrand Lavier amongst others). Together they have completed high and limited editions both in book form and original prints. His talk at PCA will focus on the art of collaboration. Michael will tell us about his experience in working with others and will try to answer the following questions: What’s collaboration? Why collaborate? What do we learn from this activity? What forms does it take? He will illustrate all these ideas through a direct reference to his most iconic books. www.michaelwoolworth.com

Mark Geffriaud is a French multidisciplinary artist working in installation, sculpture, text, artist books, projections, readings, and collaborative performances. His open-ended works explore disappearance, emptiness, misunderstanding, and false ctions–especially as these ideas relate to the circulation of images. For example, his 2007 work Les Renseignements Généraux–named after the French secret service literally meaning “global information”–is a collection of appropriated images he never intends to nish or publish, and whose design takes on various forms such as a textbook stripped of text. He has had solo exhibitions at Westbeth Center for the Arts in New York, Galerie Saint-Severin in Paris, Walden Affairs in The Hague, Jeu de Paume in Paris, Artissima in Torino, gb agency in Paris The Garden in Vilnius, Palais de Tokyo in Paris, and others. His work has been included in group exhibitions at venues such as De Appel in Amsterdam, Rowing Projects, in London, Brukenthal National Museum in Sibiu, Museum of Modern Art in Antwerp, San Francisco Art Institute, Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Bolzano, and Kadist Art Foundation in Paris. Born: 1977 Hometown: Vitry-sur-Seine, France Lives and Works: Paris, France Education: École Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Montpellier, France, 2004 www.gbagency.fr/fr/33/Mark-Geffriaud/

A few decades ago, designers started using ethnographic approaches to help them understand people and their culture in order to design better products. Over the years, designers in their work have repurposed a large array of theoretical concepts, methods and tricks. Based on a series of case studies, this talk will reflect on this evolution, and describes the notion of “design ethnography” in order to highlight the specificity of this approach. Nicolas Nova is co-founder of the Near Future Laboratory, a research agency based in Europe and California, and professor at the Geneva School of Arts and Design (HEAD - Genève). His work lies at the intersection of ethnography, interaction design and futures research, with a particular interest in ubiquitous and mobile technologies and the cultural practices surrounding new media. He is interested in observing and documenting digital and new media practices, as well as creating design fictions, i.e. speculative designed objects exploring the experiences of near future. He has given talks and exhibited his work on the intersections of design, technology and the near-future in venues such SXSW, EPIC, the AAAS conference, O’Reilly Emerging Technology Conference, NEXT, the design week in Milano, the Institute for the Future, and the MIT Medialab. Nicolas holds an undergraduate degree in Cognitive Sciences (University of Lyon), a M.Sc in Educational Technologies and Human-computer Interaction (University of Geneva) as well as a PhD in Human-Computer Interaction from the Swiss Institute of Technology (EPFL, Switzerland). He was previously a visiting researcher at the Art Center College of Design (Pasadena, CA), and a researcher at the Media and Design Lab (EPFL, Switzerland). Nicolas was finally one of co-founder and curator at Lift Conference, a series of international events about digital culture, design and innovation. www.nicolasnova.net

Steve Bisson is a Italo-belgian planner, art director, curator, working mainly in the eld of urbanism and visual anthropology. Over the past 15 years he has played his professional practice as a form of experimental game by applying the visual arts in the context of the sustainable development. From the ten-year collection project of entrepreneurial memories in his home region plagued since 2008 by an increasing suicide rate due to the economic crisis, to the transformation of an artist residency of Sao Paulo in a shared laboratory for engaging the city housing issues during 2013 demonstrations. From the situationist approach used in the study of rural landscape con icts commissioned by the Benetton Foundation, to various exhibitions dedicated to women in Russia during the incarceration of the Pussy Riot activists. As a craftsman, every project is tailor-made, taking into account the historical and social moment. In 2016, while being invited to curate the photography exhibition for the Italian pavillion of Biennale of Architecture, Bisson organized an off and free entry screening session about lms on architecture to protest against the commodi cation of the city of Venice and the spectacularization of culture. Steve Bisson has collaborated worldwide with artists, companies, museums, foundations and galleries and contributed to over 40 exhibitions and festivals as an attempt to support young talents, create debate and increase awareness on human conditions across the world. For this Steve Bisson founded, respectively in 2009 and 2012, two online publishing projects Urbanautica and Filmessay to enhance deschooling and lifelong learning, involving dozens of people, from students to professors, curators and authors. Steve Bisson has so far both lectured and taught in several academies (IUAV, Ca’ Foscari and IED in Venice, Domus Academy Milan, FAAP and Universidade das Belas Artes in Sao Paulo among others). His essays and reviews appeared in many books, studies, magazines, and websites. Often seen as a jury member for photography awards and portfolio reviews he believes in conviviality as an antidote to postmodern loss of consciousness. This reading is intended to invite participants to re ect and dialogue on the ethics of looking and on the role of image production in shaping our cultural landscapes. www.urbanautica.com | www.filmessay.com

Our practice as a 4 hands design studio started in 2005 and CUT architectures was founded in 2008. CUT, 3 letters standing for our aim to contrast deeply with a conventionalist architectural practice and the expected positions and trends. Breaking the boundaries between architecture, urbanism, interior design & art we are taking the inherent qualities of every of these elds in order to initiate inspiring hybrid projects. We don’t make hierarchical distinctions between an art installation, a piece of furniture, a shop, a at, a set design, a house or a building and put the same effort with the same process: we rst fetch materials, inspirations and references to legitimate our choices, we then search for the optimal plan layout and the most effective section to implement the chosen material(s). This process is key to a project for us in order to be able to create, reinterpret, divert and innovate. Completed projects by CUT architectures include Café Coutume (rue de Babylone, Institut Finlandais, Aoyama, Osaka, and Futakotamagawa), PNY (Fbg St Denis, Oberkampf and Haut Marais) and Le Syndicat (Fbg St Denis), etc. www.cut-architectures.com

Was it dance quitting the stage - the museum entering the opera? The piece 20 Dancers for the XX century by Boris Charmatz, performed at the Opera Garnier this October, scattered dance solos everywhere but on stage - in the lobby, on the stairs, at the bar. It was an unprecedented use of space of the “world’s most famous opera”, upsetting all the rules of classical dance presentations. The public walked, the dancers talked, and it looked like an exhibition more than a spectacle - a “living exhibition”, in Charmatz’s own words. The abundant commentaries on the piece were controversial - some celebrated the audacity of the presentation of dance, others were rather frustrated by it. Elena Sorokina is curator and art historian, alumna of the Whitney Museum of American Art ISP in New York. Throughout her career, she was invited to organise exhibitions and projects at the Musee d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris; WIELS, Brussels; Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Musée Picasso Paris and other institutions. She published in numerous catalogs, and has been writing for Artforum, Flash Art, Cabinett Magazine, Manifesta Journal, and other publications.

“Heterogenous, inhabited by innumerable constellations of questions, his limits remain undetermined. Rather than clear, distinct zones of knowledge and experience, the artist prefers those of doubt and uncertainty, at the borders of reality and imagination. From the conception of installations to the production of static or moving images, his projects take multiple forms through which he explores the realms of human adventure: life and death, the corners of memory, the dimensions of time, the visible and the invisible. Enigmatic and at times spectacular, his work is fueled as much by current research in anthropology, astrophysics or ecology as by references to film, painting and literature.” Dominique Abensour www.laurentpernot.net

Artist Gabriel Jones’ work evolves around such themes as pseudonyms, apatriotism, science, geography, archaeology, time and sensitivity filters. Gabriel Jones’photography creates an emphasis on emptiness and absence. His images hosts color as an intrinsic element for its representation of the real. Coming from an improbable road-movie, these urbanscapes register within the realms of expectation, open to all possibilities. The underlined zone -literally, the suburbs- becomes a theatrical landscape where areas evolve within their reduced immensities. (Claire Taillandier) www.gabrieljones.net

Before creating his company, LAURENT DEROO ARCHITECTE, in 2008, Laurent Deroo had a double activity, as an art director for the cinema (“THE AX” by Costa Gavras, “Who Killed Bambi” by G. Marchand, “Blame it on Fidel” by Julie Gavras, etc.) and as an independent architect. During this time, he started a collaboration with the french fashion brand “A.P.C.”, which has been ongoing for the past 15 years, and has resulted in more than 50 projects around the world (Europe, Japan, Korea, China, USA, etc.), and this story continues... In parallel, his company has developed various projects for the Coppola family (the lmmakers Francis and So a) as well as with others clients, and has embarked upon two new recurrent collaborations with the Fashion world (CARHARTT/WORK IN PROGRESS and a young spanish brand, MASSCOB). Currently, the practice is involved in developing the new luxury brand VANESSA SEWART with openings planned in Paris, NY, London and LA. www.laurentderooarchitecte.com

The eld of photographic conservation emerged in the 1970s, driven by a new awareness among cultural institutions of the value of the medium and its fragility. The discipline evolved gradually out of a heightened understanding of photographic objects, leading to the development of speci c treatment methods, training courses, protocols and international professional networks. However, since its inception, the discipline of photographic conservation has undergone constant transformation due to the evolution of shooting and printing techniques, and increased public interest in photography. This talk will explore the challenges faced by curators and conservators in the wake of the digital revolution, and will take stock of recent developments in the field. Anne Cartier-Bresson is the Cultural Heritage Curator and Director of the Atelier de Restauration et de Conservation des Photographies de la Ville de Paris, and is the author of numerous books on the subject.