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Le travail de Francisco Ruiz de Infante participe des arts plastiques, de la littérature, de la musique,
de la vidéo et, ces dernières années, trouve sa forme principalement dans des installations audiovisuelles.
Il appartient à une génération d'artistes dont la sensibilité est marquée par la rencontre et la confrontation des technologies audiovisuelles avec des matériaux plus simples, voire les plus quotidiens. Dans la construction de ses oeuvres il jongle sans complexes entre la haute technologie et le bricolage d'urgence... sans jamais oublier la place du spectateur à l'intérieur des dispositifs. Généralement éphémères, ses oeuvres sont le résultat d'un travail
"in-situ". Elles se construisent formellement pour, autour et dans l'espace qui les provoquent. Dans sa structuration des
espaces d'exposition, la notion de parcours ou de circuit est prédominante. Dans le lieu d'exposition, il élabore des passages et des rituels physiques
d'accès vers ses "fragiles architectures en construction", à mi-chemin entre la ruine et le chantier.
Les "parcours à expérimenter" qu'il propose au spectateur, constituent parfois un "piège" pour le faire
plonger sans balises dans sa propre perception. Celle-ci doit être questionnée et ensuite remodelée à l'aide des "points d'appui" (les matériaux
conceptuels, les éléments audiovisuels et les objets physiques qui constituent les installations).
Francisco Ruiz de Infante reconstruit certaines manières dont fonctionne la mémoire ramenée
au présent : en saccades pleines d'erreurs d'information ou comme un torrent d'images qui recommencent sans fin.
Aussi, il essaye de se confronter à l'aspect absurde et terrible de quelques comportements humains quotidiens et trop automatiques. À l'aide d'obstacles ou de freins aux mouvements libres des spectateurs, il pose des questions autour de la notion d'interdit dans la société "risque zéro" qu'on veut nous vendre; cette société qui confond trop souvent "participation" et "manipulation". Il montre dans ses installations (parfois d'une manière très physique) que la vie est une affaire de risque et qu'il faut rester toujours en alerte. On peux citer ici quelques travaux importants dans sa trajectoire : des expositions telles que
Collisions (PAC de Milan 2001), Non Lieu (Rio Scenarium, Rio de Janeiro 2001),
La construction du Puzzle (Musée Guggenheim Bilbao 2000), Mixing the air -sabotage- (Biennal
Site Santa Fe. USA 1999), Simulateurs de Vol (Ujazdowki Castel, Varsovie 1998) et Les sons de Survie
(CAC La Ferme du Buisson, Paris 1997).
Dans le champ de la vidéo, le long métrage Les Loups (1995) et le court Les Choses Simples (prix découverte au Festival du nouveau Cinéma de Montréal 1993) Dans le domaine de la danse, la collaboration sans entraves avec le chorégraphe Loïc Touzé ("Un Bloc" 1997 et "S'il y a lieu" 1999) furent des expériences clés dans sa conception des relations troubles avec le spectateur.
Dans ses derniers travaux, deux lignes thématiques très liées deviennent fondamentales:
1. La compréhension et relativisation des interdits (cristallisée
par l'utilisation de quelques textes de lois, l'analyse des normes de sécurité, et l'invention de règles pour d'étranges jeux)
Avec mes derniers "dispositifs" je cherche à provoquer l'hésitation du
spectateur ; le pousser à s'interroger sur le bien fondé des règles (parfois explicitées sous forme de "notices d'usage"). Ainsi quelques questions simples
apparaissent très clairement : on peut passer? on peut toucher? on peut parler? on peut s'asseoir? on peut prendre?
Effectivement dans mes projets récents on rentre comme on pénètre dans une
salle de jeux un peu inquiétante ou comme le ferait un enfant qui explore pour jouer à se faire peur. Ce jeu auquel je veux convier le spectateur, peut le
faire glisser vers le jeu interdit de l'adulte : celui qui mélange consciemment réalité et fiction.
2. La construction métaphorique d'écosystèmes (dans lesquels la
notion d'intrus, catastrophe, transformation et/ou évolution sont prises en compte). Cette ligne de réflexion va aboutir à la construction d'un nouveau
film et actuellement se développe fondamentallement sous forme de performances, images photographiques et textes.
Aujourd'hui dans mon travail je voudrais que les perceptions physiques et
inconscientes -accentuées par le soupçon d'un danger- puissent se battre avec la perception plus intellectualisée de l'acte artistique. C'est pourquoi mes
installations prennent pleinement leur sens à travers l'expérience et le contact direct : auteur, lieu, oeuvre, spectateur, auteur...
A l'intérieur de ces "systèmes", les réactions du spectateur constituent un outil de réflexion très riche pour avancer dans chaque nouvelle proposition d'une façon inattendue. |
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Fragile architectures to live in
Francisco Ruiz de Infante is part of a generation of artists whose sensibility is marked by the encounter and confrontation of technology with other very basic materials. In his works he seamlessly combines technological appliances with emergency D-I-Y.
Invariably short-lived, his constructions are the result of an "in situ" experience taken to the extreme. They are created around, for and in the place that provokes them.
In his conception of exhibitive space, the notion of a "walk through", or of a circuit, is uppermost. And, in this sense, then, he builds alleys, paths, tunnels, gateways...: physical rituals of entrance to his "fragile architectures", half-way between building and ruin.
Complex Accelerators of Unconsciousness ("walk throughs" and "puzzle solving")
The participatory "walk throughs" that he designs and the displacement generated by them, sometimes constitute a "trap" designed to immerse the spectator in a process of questioning his or her own perceptive reality.
Francisco Ruiz de Infante recreates some of the ways that memory works when activated in the present: in the shape of strong currents full of erroneous information or as a flood of images set on restart in an unending loop. His multimedia installations are complex accelerators of unconsciousness.
References to childhood recur in his entire body of work. Childhood, or better, the path from childhood / adolescence / adulthood, runs through his various projects making us enter into spaces in which the "unusual ordinary" becomes manifest (places for learning, half-dismantled sets for festivals, rule free game arcades in which no one plays, menacing childlike cabins, mad building games on a one size scale, puzzle solving lacking any tangible logic, multimedia spaces of absurd violence...).
The line between reality and fiction (learning, education and risk)
His revision and analysis of these "formative" stages of human life raises, subjectwise, some of the dangers of education-"modelization" and its deformation-development in adult society (a highly "puerilizing" society in today's context, in which the noise of the media irresponsibly dictates the rhythm of collective thought).
As one walks through his installations, one can find direct allusions to the methods of construction, unfettered by hierarchical norms, of childhood. In his work, the subjects of scale, of the unfinished thing, of the hidden place, of the incredible complexity of inefficient spaces, of inexact symmetry, of highly sophisticated disorder... are transformed into a dangerous and disturbing reality.
As part of the "acceleration" generated by an accumulation of sensorial and conceptual elements in the works, Ruiz de Infante confronts us with some of the absurd and terrible forms of overly automatic conduct that are a consequence of the social rules of adults. With the help of obstacles and by slowing down the unimpeded movement of the spectator, he questions the notion, that certain ideologies would have us believe, of "the forbidden" in a "zero risk" society; a society that often confuses "participation" with "manipulation"; "good education" with "lack of curiosity". His devices show us (often in a very physical manner) that life is a risky business and that we must always be on the look out.
A number of his videos can be viewed at the permanent collection of the Centre Pompidou (Paris).
For October 2002 he is preparing a walk through consisting of 7 new pieces for the exhibition "Doble o Nada" (Double or Quits) at Urpean (Vitoria-Gasteiz) and a highly complex project for the Strasbourg Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art.
Childhood and transitory states
"...It's true that my view of the world and of my childhood is marked by its unclear nature. In it, the social laws haven't been integrated and the meaning of the notion of "forbidden" is viewed as something absurd.
Indeed a child is often seen as the epitome of innocence... but children are the seeds of adults who haven't yet completely understood the social ecosystem they have been dealt to grow up in. In this stage of life the lines between reality and fiction aren't clearly defined. Evidently, "the understanding" of the world will progress gradually through an apprenticeship in the rules governing social relationships in each different context: scientific, cultural, moral and ethical education will take care of this. Clearly, the assimilation of language and the codes of community will lead to a subsequent adult acceptance, submission, or rebellion. Something that fascinates me (as an artist and a human being) is the freedom of the mechanism of childhood perception and the imprecise use of rules that are only sensed. This generates interesting (and dangerous) social dysfunctions that are very hard to judge from a moral standpoint. In much of my work, I strive to decontextualize some of those mechanisms in an effort to better understand and relativize our adult freedom."
Understanding and questioning "the Forbidden"
In my latest "mechanisms" I seek to provoke a perceptive doubt in the spectator; I want to push him towards a reflection which questions the basis of our rules and norms (sometimes outlined explicitly in a project in a written "instruction manual"). In this way, some very simple questions arise quite naturally: Can one pass through? Can one touch it? Can one speak? Is one allowed to sit down? ...
(...) in my recent installations you enter them as if entering a disturbing game arcade, or as a child would explore a place that frightens him. The game I invite the spectator to play, may make him slip towards the forbidden game of adulthood: one which consciously mixes reality and fiction.
The construction and analysis of ecosystems
(ones in which notions of the intruder, catastrophe, transformation and/or evolution are taken into account)
Currently in my work, I'd like physical and unconscious perception -punctuated by a suspicion of danger- to be a match for the more intellectualized perception of the artistic act, but without implying that as a result the difficult balance of perception be shaken. That's why my installations make sense through experience and direct contact: author, place, work, spectator, author...
Inside these "systems", the reactions of each "visitor" constitute an area of reflection fundamental for advancing towards each new challenge in an unexpected manner. |
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