Opus IX: Abode of Chaos / Demeure du Chaos 1999-2013

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Page 150
Melilla et Ceuta (2005)
Geder HaHafrada
Katrina (2005)
Page 151
Jean-Paul II & Mehmet Ali Ağca
Gaza is no different than a burning
bus in Clichy. Through French
eyes, the romanticism of ruins is
glocal: simultaneously planetary
and hyper­local. It is this vision of
“glocal” that we are retranscribing.
Mc Luhan’s prophecy has definitely
been realized: we find ourselves in
a global village having become glocal
but certainly not in the best of
worlds. It is time now for the general
public to establish its own value
system, to size an image and
measure its impact without the assistance
of the media. Our works
do not take stances but rather offer
means to decipher and analyze
images in the 21st century. To suppress
the media means to remove
the supervision of its authority,
freeing the imagination.
Our spectators are relearning how
to read images in a society where
each of us, through the use of cell
phones and digital cameras, are becoming
our own reporters. Facing
the thousands of images invading
our daily lives and taking a certain
few to transform them into
works of art allows us to mark
time and rediscover the fabulous
imagination which photography
has brought to human relations.
Listening to people comment on
“uncaptioned” photographs is highly
fruitful.
I remember this one particular
photo taken in the London subway
system where the crowd wanders
through its tunnels. Most people
saw in this image a religious vision
of a mass converging towards
light, others, alien like beings with
their craniums distorted by the
lens. This picture will also grace the
covers of all international press.
Through a profusion of comments
from our spectators we can attest
that uncaptioning gives the images
its lost occult drama.
The Abode could very well be a real
time press agency, a witness of
this century, where one can read
through a flow of art works, the
delegendized history. This journey
is atypical and constitutes alone
one of the artistic approaches of
the Abode of Chaos.
thierry Ehrmann
Signe de guerre