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Paris
Connection is
co-produced and co-published by Arteonline.arq.br
(Rio), Coriolisweb.org
(Toronto), dichtung-digital.org
(Berlin), Turbulence.org
(New York). It contains introductions to,
interviews with, and reviews on: Jean-Jacques
Birgé, Nicolaus Clauss,
Frédéric Durieu, Jean-Luc Lamarque,
Antoine Schmitt, Servovalve. For French, Portuguese
and Spanish version see: http://vispo.com/thefrenchartists.
The version on dichtung-digitial is made possible
by ZKM. | Birgé | Clauss | Durieu | Lamarque | Schmitt | Servovalve |
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INTERVIEW with
Antoine Schmitt
by Jim
Andrews Antoine Schmitt: The
algorithms behind "avec determination' are quite complex. I
designed them for my "Venus
#1" piece, in 1998,
and it took me about one week to set them up. Then I reused
the same algorithms as a basis for the "avec determination"
pieces (by adding "determination") as well as the
"perls"
piece of the "avec
tact" series. Each
of the "avec determination" then take between one hour and a
few hours to create. It really depends on my
mood. What issues
were you dealing with in making these works? The essence of the being
with a body. All my work is about why things move (this
way), the forces behind the movements, the tension between
what is going to happen... In the case of "Avec
determination", the tension is between the desire to stand
up and the difficulties in doing so, which is both
metaphorical and desperately physical. Is this work
that you have applied elsewhere or have future plans
concerning taking it further? Is this ongoing work?
"Avec determination" is
ongoing work. I create these suffering creatures as a way to
take something out of myself. I started the series in 2000
and I made the last one in Feb 2002. I like your
section "About"
"Avec determination". Passionate and
artistico-philosophical, Antoine! I got the impression that
this indicates ongoing work. I have many themes of
exploration going on. The "Avec determination" series, the
"nanoensemble
series", the
"Vexation 1" thread. For all these, I set up a context, and
try to push it. Tell me
about your "asFFT"
Xtra for Director. When did you make this? I made it in 1998, for my
"Venus
#1" piece. I wanted
a creature that moved with music, for friends (among whom is
Jean-Jacques Birgé, co-author of many of Nicolas
Clauss's pieces and some of Frédéric Durieu's
pieces) doing a concert, and I wanted the movements to be
complex, yet relate to the music. That's when I created both
the "asFFT" Xtra and the algorithms to move an articulated
body. I'm always interested in the
causes of the movement, and I tackle this subject through
many ways. One of them is to give senses to a creature, and
have it react to the outside world, and in the case of
"Venus #1", to what it hears. In the case of "Venus #1", for
which I created the "asFFT", the ear of Venus is directly
connected to the muscles, so the sound directly animates the
body. The "asFFT" is the ear of "Venus #1". |
"For each of these creatures, I try to approach a certain essence of being. A mode of being of different quality for each of them. And for this, I concentrate on their dynamics, their movement, on the shapes that take their motivation in their reality." |
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I am really fond
of "Venus #1". I think that it has its own way of reacting
to the music, which makes us listen to music we know in a
different way. As the #1 implies, I had the idea to create
other creatures on the same concept, but I haven't found the
inspiration yet. How
would you describe your main concerns as an
artist-programmer?
I stand at the
crossing of a practice (programming) and an artistic quest,
mostly humanist. I use programming as matter that I mold to
create what we call 'plastic' art in french, that is, mainly
objects or situations. My main concern is 'the tension
between what is going to happen', and programming is a
unique way of exploring this field. A program is a huge
succession of micro-decisions, and this similarity with the
live beings is remarkable, and it is this similarity that I
concentrate on. Are
there other works of yours you want to talk about with
me? Much too many !
:-) My latest series, "the
nanoensembles", and
their friend "the
world ensemble" as
well as the related 22 cubes ensemble and the nanomachine
performance, are really exciting for me these days.
You
have put together a great page of links at gratin.org.
You seem to follow what is on the web concerning algorithmic
art quite closely. Yes ! This field
has become really active lately, and lots of interesting
works and theoric positions take place around it. It is even
overhyped in a sense, mainly because of the mystery of the
act of programming (for non-programmers). I try to keep the
gratin.org site focused on my main interest, that is
systems, simulations, autonomy... What
is gratin.org? Who is in it? I am centralizing
the interesting links that a group of relations forward to
me. Do
you and Durieu and Nicolas Clauss talk about your shared
interests much? Actually, even
though we meet quite a lot, we don't talk about what we do.
We mostly talk about how it is (difficult) to be an artist,
or about ongoing contracts... What
other concerns and interests do you share with Durieu,
Clauss, servovalve and Jean-Luc Lamarque? I like
Frédéric
Durieu's playful
objects. I am really fond of Nicolas
Clauss's (and
Jean-Jacques
Birgé's)
poetry. I get a lot of inspiration from servovalve's
graphic aesthetics. I like also the creative tool aspect and
the collaborative approach of Jean-Luc Lamarque's
Pianographique.
You
all use Director and are artist-programmers. How did this
come about? No idea ! For me,
Director is the best tool as it allows me to concentrate on
the heart of my work without having to worry about technical
details, like portability, graphics displays, sound formats,
etc... Director, despite all its flaws, is agreat platform
for prototyping really fast (from the idea to the object),
and for integrating image and sound with algorithms.
Where
do you tend to meet? At our friend's
Jean-Jacques Birgé :-) He is the one who created the
link between most of us. Do
you work with them? I have worked
quite a lot with Jean-Jacques Birgé (Carton,
Machiavel), and a few times with servovalve. And some more
projects are on the way... Do
you think of this situation as unusual—that you are
part of such a talented group of artists that all use the
same tool and are web.artists in the same vacinity? It seems
very splendid to me. I think that
there are some other unusual groups, in London (around
generative.net)
or New York (around dorkbot-nyc),
or even Paris (betaville,
etc...) |
