Photo: «3 of an arctic perfect pair»
MAY 18 / 16:30–18:00 / SCREENING HALL
This lecture will focus on the artistic pratice of the artist regarding his collaboration with some of the world biggest fundamental physics experiments, especially here with the Neutrino submarin telescopes experiments.
The artist will present one of his art work in progress called Aganta Kairos, inspired by two physics experiments in Neutrinos research, one in Mediterranean sea and the other and the Baïkal Lake.
A quote from the roman philosopher Seneca, two thousand years ago, was the trigger of this art work:
«Later, over the years, times will come when the ocean will open the barriers of the universe and the earth will offer itself in its vastness ; Thétis will reveal new worlds and Thulé will stop being the furthest part of the earth»
Médée, Sénèque in Tragedy.
Neutrinos are called by the scientists «the ghost particle», they consider it like a cosmic messenger. Laurent Mulot took this proposal as a statement for creating a physical network between people around the world, on the shore of the six oceans, (included Lake Baïkal, the ocean to be…) and the cosmos.
Since 2012 until 2018 the artist has established places of celebration of the neutrino passage on the earth, ashore the Indian, Pacific, Antarctic, Arctic, Atlantic oceans and Baïkal lake with people living there. These People «enter» in this art work through a performance, a «ceremony» inaugurating a plaque attestating that they are witnesses of the passage of the invisible particle. In some of this places Aganta Kairos witnesses were carrying traditional and ancient beliefs which strangely intersect with science, as in Greenland with inuit people, in New Zealand with Maori people, in Madagascar with Mahafaly and with chamanism around the Baïkal lake. Science and ancient beliefs doesn’t proceed in the same way, doesn’t have the same purpose but both feed the same questioning about our origin and our connection with the cosmos.
The title Aganta Kairos is a phrase created by the artist, mixing old southern french mediterranean language and greek. It means «to fish the metaphysical time».
The presentation will contextualize Aganta Kairos in the global work of Laurent Mulot and will alternate between talk and pictures / videos projections and end with the discussion with the public.
The visual art work Aganta Kairos has been also adapted for the stage, co-directed by Laurent Mulot and Thierry Poquet and tour in France since 2017. A short video subtitle in english will also shown during the talk.
Bio
“Laurent Mulot is known to be the surprising founder of a just as surprising international network of Ghost Contemporary Art Centers. Six of them are spread over the six continents, Europe, Asia, America, Africa, Oceania, Antarctica. This in progress federation belongs to Middle of Nowhere work (MOFN) the artist initiated in 2001 following the creation of his first Ghost Contemporary Art Center in Cook, Australia.
Artist Laurent Mulot is a migrant, a wanderer, nomadism being consubstantial to his artistic practice. Notoriously, geographic nomadism leads him to the middle of nowhere…
Laurent Mulot is a master of “infra-thin” to quote Marcel Duchamp. From nothing, this bewildering artist creates “something”- a work of art.
The neutrino seems to be out of reach. It is not for Laurent Mulot, whose artistic gesture reaches the highest spheres of fundamental research and turns him into a poet of invisible matter and energy.”
Paul Ardenne
Art historian, Art critic and curator
“Laurent Mulot offers us a work that was unseen before taking the form of a long term experience called “Middle of Nowhere”.
“Middle of Nowhere”, a work encompassing the whole artist’s production, is a tale opening with the Ghost Contemporary Art Centers that the artist created all over the world, on each continent.
This new tale of the world, that is what Laurent Mulot’s work really is about, continues further within the fundamental scientific research field. It is the case with Augenblick, that he creates while doing a residency on CERN territory in Genova, with Thinkrotron, created during a residency at the European Synchrotron facility in Grenoble or Aganta-Kairos, inspired from the Antares experiment (neutrino observatory).”
Abdelkader Damani
Currator and FRAC Centre Director
Laurent Mulot was educated at Paris University of Pantheon Sorbonne Visual Art department.
Born in 1957 in Le Havre France, based in Lyon, France.
Since 2001 he continues his long term work of art called Middle of Nowhere where Aganta Kairos takes place (mofn.org)
His work always begins by a poetical gesture with some people (often in a remote place) becoming actors of the art work and continues with exhibitions generally showing installation (photos, sounds, videos, sculptures).
Since 2007, he begins to collaborate with physicists of the Large Hadron Collider for the Biennale of Contemporary Art of Lyon and continues with some majors physics fundamental experiments.
His works has been shown in many galleries and art festivals over Australia, China, Brasil, Morocco, Canada, France and European countries.
“My point of view is an extra-territorial one, I have been trying to create art where I think it belongs rather than to conquer territories for the art sake. It necessarily involves the commitment of the people I meet.” Laurent Mulot