Télécharger le pdf de la publication - Reynald Drouhin

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JACQUES SAUVAGEOT
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TRANSLATED BY
CLAIRE GROVER
Reynald Drouhin has been teaching at Fine Arts School in
Rennes for several years now. He is one of the artists who
uses the new tools and mediums linked to computer
science, and he claims them as a means of expressing a
pertinent creativity.
The Fine Arts School of Rennes publishes: for an exhibition,
or to enhance the work of students and teachers. Our
publishing can occur within traditional frames, like the
magazine “Pratiques” (practices), or can exploit when
necessary new mediums such as CD-Roms or DVDs; the
school has published CD-Roms with Tom Drahos and Jean-
Yves Langlois, and there’s a DVD in gestation with Adalberto
Mecarelli. This publication is mixed media, with a booklet
and a DVD video (as was already the case with the CD-ROM
Dr. Du Zhenjun’s Anatomy Lesson).
The Fine Arts School of Rennes is not specialized in teaching
computer creation. Naturally, specific training is obtainable
in this discipline, particularly in the context of joint courses
with the University of Rennes 2. In Rennes, as in most
schools, computer science is widely used, in all fields. A
parallel could be established with photography and especially
video perhaps: the students who choose these tools
are not those who use them the most!
In fact, perhaps we shouldn’t consider the computer as a
separate tool, it is so entwined with other tools, sometimes
in obvious ways, sometimes invisibly – what differentiates a
digital photography from traditional photographic print, a
video montage from a live recording, a “synthetic” sound
from a naturally captured “sound”...?
Nevertheless we come up against a paradox: the computer
is present but does not necessarily show, or if shown, only as
a subservient instrument, as in the current Biennial in
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Rhizomes, 1999-2000
Venice, where the computer appears for documentary or
inventory purposes, or to present a project... when in fact it
is more truly present in many installations or exhibited
objects, even in hung pictures or projected images.
This situation has the advantage of not questioning whether
a technique is or not artistic. The question was easily settled
in most cases admittedly thanks to the precedents of
photography and video where the problem was posed and
possible responses outlined.
This also allowed bypassing the question of “specificity of
the medium”, where the use of a given tool – like oil paints –
would guarantee the quality of the resulting work!
Here as elsewhere, the point is not the tool or medium, but
how the artist uses it.
However in this respect, some tools and some work allow for
asking or re-formulating basic questions. Reynald Drouhins’
work, presented here, typifies this.
Through interventions on the network, appealing to a maximum
of potentially participating spectators, creating new
images from existing images, by producing constantly changing
representations..., Reynald Drouhin re-formulates the
issue of the components of an image and our perception of
the image. Of its evolution, and adaptability, the uniqueness
and multiplicity of a work, its places and spaces of visibility.
This is where he joins many current preoccupations
concerning the status of a work and its connection to the
spectator. But he develops this approach in his own way: not
going with the flow, or being trendy, banal, not journalistic
nor spectacular, but rather investing an intimate vision,
while remaining under the influence of art history.
One may imagine that a promising field of reflection and
practice is engaged here.