Opus IX: Abode of Chaos / Demeure du Chaos 1999-2013
Is it to be considered a book? Or is it a magic object, each page of which being an original narrative of the Abode of Chaos rendered in a ground-breaking dreamlike vision. thierry Ehrmann: we put all our passion and folly into preparing this French-English Collector, the book of the decade: 504 pages / 4.5 kg / Square format – Edition bound – 11.8 in. x 11.8 in. and 1.97 inch-thick – includes the Opus IX from 1999 to 2013. A Note to Our Readers All the photographs, video stills, illustrations, handwritings, sketches, 3D modelling images, plans, maps and drawings are all part of the artworks and/or performances produced "in situ" at the Abode of Chaos. The images of artworks included in this book do not cover the Above of Chaos in its entirety but only a small part of it.
Is it to be considered a book? Or is it a magic object, each page of which being an original narrative of the Abode of Chaos rendered in a ground-breaking dreamlike vision. thierry Ehrmann: we put all our passion and folly into preparing this French-English Collector, the book of the decade: 504 pages / 4.5 kg / Square format – Edition bound – 11.8 in. x 11.8 in. and 1.97 inch-thick – includes the Opus IX from 1999 to 2013.
A Note to Our Readers
All the photographs, video stills, illustrations, handwritings, sketches, 3D modelling images, plans, maps and drawings are all part of the artworks and/or performances produced "in situ" at the Abode of Chaos.
The images of artworks included in this book do not cover the Above of Chaos in its entirety but only a small part of it.
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photo Ingrid Janssen<br />
36 37<br />
We scatter ashes, as if it is only<br />
once death has been declared that<br />
we can envisage the body multiplied<br />
and its absorption by the<br />
world.<br />
The only double we generally<br />
accept is that we see reflected in a<br />
mirror. Yet, imagine that a flash<br />
suddenly brings it to life and the<br />
thought is unnerving. One<br />
wrapping defines one indivi<strong>du</strong>al<br />
step past this symbolic frontier<br />
and you can envisage the floodgates<br />
opening to a terrifying<br />
expansion <strong>of</strong> the boundaries <strong>of</strong><br />
thought and all the realms <strong>of</strong><br />
possibility…<br />
The Internet is precisely such a<br />
space apart, where, having finally<br />
become virtual, the body can,<br />
without risk, divide, dilute itself<br />
and imagine itself ubiquitous.<br />
Nothing then remains but the<br />
substance, the originator, the<br />
indivi<strong>du</strong>al who pro<strong>du</strong>ced the first<br />
impulse.<br />
E.T. plunged into a virtual world<br />
as if into an experience which<br />
echoed his own from 1983 an<br />
experience <strong>of</strong> legal non existence<br />
which forced him to endlessly<br />
redefine himself on the edges <strong>of</strong><br />
reality.<br />
The legal guardianship <strong>of</strong> mentally<br />
incapacitated a<strong>du</strong>lts, laid down<br />
as a postulate <strong>of</strong> life, effectively<br />
equates to erasure from the social<br />
record, to a removal from the<br />
world which electrifies the essence<br />
<strong>of</strong> the indivi<strong>du</strong>al, in other words,<br />
the body and soul.<br />
Leaving judges to take on the<br />
responsibility <strong>of</strong> enshrining his<br />
existence in law, that <strong>of</strong> an<br />
indivi<strong>du</strong>al under legal control and<br />
his other self, its mirror image, his<br />
deepest inner part, who, <strong>of</strong> course,<br />
they could never control, E.T.<br />
marked out, on this <strong>du</strong>al track on<br />
which he traveled incessantly back<br />
and forth, the boundaries <strong>of</strong> a<br />
space where, under the weight <strong>of</strong><br />
coercion, he found freedom.<br />
For this was and is a search, a<br />
quest, that E.T. con<strong>du</strong>cts on the<br />
line between the social and the<br />
religious, weaving together the<br />
paths <strong>of</strong> all mysteries.<br />
He lived with dark ways residing<br />
in his flesh, he threw his whole<br />
physical being into his secret<br />
quest, experiencing dangers at the<br />
surface <strong>of</strong> his emotions and<br />
bringing the infinitely sacred to<br />
the surface <strong>of</strong> the legal.<br />
Freedom to lead his life with full<br />
knowledge <strong>of</strong> how things really<br />
are crossing a minefield or an<br />
obstacle course, he embarked,<br />
with enormous selfdiscipline, on<br />
obsCurum<br />
Per<br />
obsCurIus<br />
a path where the law was weakened<br />
by being too present.<br />
This was a journey <strong>of</strong> initiation<br />
which put the body to the test, in<br />
as much as the battle and<br />
resistance became constant, each<br />
action in the end leading inevitably<br />
(like a disability) to its<br />
continuation into the legal sphere.<br />
It was in this undefined area that<br />
E.T. was to enact his experience.<br />
So films, like referees, play the<br />
role <strong>of</strong> witnesses, and at the limit<br />
<strong>of</strong> the impression made by the<br />
body in reality, their single<br />
viewpoint is <strong>du</strong>plicated as it is<br />
bounced back to them. From the<br />
fissure emerges the point <strong>of</strong><br />
nonreturn for the "I".<br />
"I", which beyond its psychiatric<br />
manifestation, experiences the<br />
irre<strong>du</strong>cibility <strong>of</strong> the "being".<br />
E.T. accompanies his journey with<br />
symbolic images on one hand the<br />
great book <strong>of</strong> the law, on the other<br />
the Great Book which is the Bible.<br />
Between them, with neither god<br />
nor master, but always seeking<br />
meaning and direction, walk his<br />
flesh, his thoughts and his<br />
relationship with society. Each<br />
time, he is tested, the end molded<br />
by suffering, in selfabnegation.<br />
Leaving the outer body, dissolving,<br />
becomes just another way <strong>of</strong><br />
rediscovering his essence. It is in<br />
the multiplicity <strong>of</strong> images, their<br />
accumulation over the time that<br />
actions last, that he deconstructs<br />
and reconstructs himself.<br />
For his approach is utopian. By in<br />
effect questioning the position <strong>of</strong><br />
the indivi<strong>du</strong>al facing the legal<br />
system, the news and economic,<br />
political, social and religious<br />
groupings, he reveals what is<br />
possible and the networks that<br />
can give him genuine freedom to<br />
imagine the world.<br />
In 1980 E.T. came <strong>of</strong> age the age<br />
they call carefree, when people<br />
usually rush to take their place in<br />
the social order. It is difficult<br />
though, in this day and age, to<br />
take side roads in all innocence.<br />
The end <strong>of</strong> this century looks after<br />
itself, it dreams <strong>of</strong> finishing with<br />
utopias and marks the death <strong>of</strong><br />
the avantgarde.<br />
Finding reasons to hope then<br />
becomes an impossible battle.<br />
So E.T. decided to go his own way.<br />
However, in choosing to become a<br />
legal guinea pig, a laboratory<br />
animal to be dissected, he did not<br />
in any way allow the law to<br />
restrict him.<br />
On the contrary, he put himself<br />
under its constant gaze. The<br />
freedom he gave himself was still<br />
only that <strong>of</strong> the freedom to weigh<br />
up the tiny part where it could<br />
continue to function within<br />
himself.<br />
As Cain under a staring eye<br />
constantly on watch from the<br />
shadows <strong>of</strong> the tomb, he thus<br />
moved forward, reflecting an<br />
image whose strength was to lie in<br />
transgression and thus in<br />
humanity.<br />
It was while under supervision<br />
that he questioned the system,<br />
constantly doing things that<br />
clashed directly with the machinery<br />
<strong>of</strong> the legal system; so that he<br />
can now relate this absurd story in<br />
which each setback underlined the<br />
flimsiness <strong>of</strong> the original case.<br />
This picture <strong>of</strong> life under legal<br />
guardianship can only belong to<br />
tragedy. Indeed, to think <strong>of</strong><br />
yourself as experimental terrain<br />
implies a huge degree <strong>of</strong> honesty,<br />
so it is to be expected that this<br />
initiatory chapter will be written<br />
with savagery.<br />
sCarIFICatIon