Renowned French artist ORLAN comes to Bulgaria for the first time as part of the festival program of DA Fest 9 and the Digital November program of the French Institute presents an exhibition of selected ORLAN projects at Credo Bonum Gallery.
Interactive Photographic Installation (1977, 2016) Têtes à claques, jeu de massacre and Mask of Beijing Opera, Facing Designs and Augmented Reality Self-Hybridizations, photo montage digital, 2014. Petition contre la Mort, No baby no, and J'ai Faim,J'ai Soif, et Ça Pourrait Être Pire.
"Tête à claques, jeu de massacre" (1977) is one of ORLAN's pioneering performances and an early example of her interest in the interactivity between work and audience, which pushed her to use new technologies. The interactive installation uses photographs of ORLAN's face, and the audience is invited to interact with them by hitting the heads with a cloth ball to make them fall. The heads fell, making a sound, and then rose again, making a new sound, like a roller coaster.
In 1977, ORLAN created the work Tête à claques, jeu de masacre, which we now consider to be the first evidence of his interest in the interactivity between his works and the public, and which pushed him towards the use of new technologies. It is an installation that uses photographs of ORLAN's face cut out and glued onto wood. The audience was invited to hit the heads with a cloth ball to make them fall. The heads fell, making a sound, and then rose again, making a new sound, like a roller coaster.
Mask of Beijing Opera, Facing Designs and Augmented Reality Self-Hybridizations, 2014 - series of photographs with digital photomontage
In 2014, ORLAN hybridized with the masks of Beijing Opera, creating Chinese self-hybridizations. In this opera, women are not allowed on stage, so men play their roles. ORLAN scans his body and then articulates it so he can perform all the acrobatics of Peking Opera. With an artificial body, all sorts of contortions are possible, but with a biological body they are impossible.
ORLAN dresses its avatars and adds tattoos that repeat the same motifs from hybridized photography. Each artwork has a different avatar that can be taken outside the artwork's frame by downloading the ARTI VIVE app and scanning the artwork with it. You can then take photos of yourself with your friends and the avatar and send them around the world like any other selfie.
Like the three-part video series created in 2018:
Pétition contre la Mort, 2018, video, 2'32"
ORLAN calls for the death of death and advocates for you to sign their petition against death in this video.
No baby no, 2018, video, 2'46"
ORLAN believes that having children at a time when the world is overpopulated is an environmental crime.
J'ai Faim, J'ai Soif, et Ça Pourrait Être Pire, 2018, video, 3'11"
With this formula, ORLAN talks about war, hunger and food that turns into poison.
La liberté en écorchée, 2013, 28'32" - 3D video
With this manifesto, ORLAN wants to condemn racism. To this end, she chooses to present herself as a woman without skin so that no one can attribute a certain skin colour to her. No photos of her were used for the portrait, it was done by a machine following her commands. Two tenses are mixed: that of Andre Vesale's anatomical plates and ours, through a cyborg reading of her body. Her body is made up of several prostheses, some permanent, like the protrusions on her temples, others temporary, like the kneecaps she used in her performances. Thus, ORLAN wants to show a female body that is different from the skinny and skeletal bodies on the catwalks of fashion shows, a body of a mature and strong woman. This woman takes the position of the Statue of Liberty to emphasize the importance of freedom.
