Double Vitrage, 2024 UV resin, 3D printer, glass, clay and sand, living ants colony
You wouldn’t believe, 2024 inkjet print on canvas
(+) You wouldn’t believe, would you, you would, not, you would believe if, you wouldn’t believe what, or maybe, you believe, don’t you not ? Please do.
Titled Objects, 2024 UV resin, recycled materials
Take Shelter, 2024 Ants colony, plexiglass, 3D printings
Indistinct Chatter, 2024 HD video, 5min, ST
Prequel, 2024 HD Video, ST, 9min
Des choses dans le futur, 2024 HD film, 09’50’’, 16:9, ST, Mixed 3D Techniques
(+) Project created by Olivier Bémer and 13 disabled teenagers from Beau Soleil secondary school in Chelles (77).
In mythology, the golem is a creature made of clay and shaped like a human being, into which life is breathed by words. It has neither speech nor willpower, and its function is to assist and defend its creator. Students from the Beau Soleil secondary school (Chelles - 77) used this figure to create one or more half golem, half robot. Around the models, they invented their own narrative framework. What would these robots do in real life? How would they improve their daily lives? Inspired by these speculative narratives, Olivier Bémer brought these clay robots to life in a film. In a classroom setting, they come to life, on screen, through the words with which the students have surrounded them, giving them a purpose and a destiny.
(Words by Andréanne Béguin)
Students: Coraline CELERIER, Abdoulaye DIALLO, Ismaïla DOUKANSSY, Adame EL HOSNI, Chahine GHARSALLAH, Ethan KENDIRA, Waël LADOULI, Lucas LI, Angel PEREC-ROCHA, Bastien PONTET, Ilyass RAMDAN, Angelo SIMOES. Beatriz DIAS SANTOS and Mathias CHALUPKA.
Coordinating teacher: Charlotte VEGLIA-KERDRAON.
Je deviens, 2023 LED panel, script python, variable dimensions
(+) (I become) is an ongoing collection of hundreds of video titles found on social networks containing the two words I and become
Pile je gagne, Face tu perds, 2023 vidéo HD, 1’43’’ loop, two laptop computers
Les Indésirables, 2023 Laser printer, A4 paper, Javascript
(+) You can find online several lists of words or expressions to avoid in emails or your message could end up in the spam box. This installation present a printer that spill out every 10 minutes a random haiku using a compilation of these blacklist. A simple program choose 3 lines and then compose a short poem. The printed poems then accumlates on the exhibition floor. The program runs online @ http://olivierbemer.com/spam/
Mug Phenomena, 2022 HD video, 3D printed mugs, 12’02’’, 16:9, ST, 3D animation, fiverr.com
(+) A first mug is scanned in three dimensions in order to make a digital copy which will then be printed in 3D. Like photocopies, this operation is thus repeated until the original shape is exhausted. A sort of reversed archaeology in which the digital iteration degrades its subject as much as it declines it. The physical copies are then presented as sculptures along with an animated video made with the digital copies. Talking characters are placed on the mugs, trying to convince that their mug is more valuable than the previous one. Each reproduction seeks to individualize itself artificially as the form loses the link to its utility.
Noon, 2021 HD Film, 15’00’’, 4:3, Binaural Mix, Blender 3D,Frosted plexiglass, 165x124cm, Halyard, Various knots Production Le Fresnoy - Studio National des Arts Contemporains
(+) In a room of fictions we are welcomed by a man without a past. As he passes through gradients of artificial light, our avatar discovers his shadow. When the symmetry breaks, a grayscale duel ensues, where rationality overexposes while fear darkens.
In NOON, shadow and light assume an allegorical form. An obsessive desire to eliminate shadows in favor of light reflects the mirage of progress through technology; rationalizing one's environment by erasing any trace of doubt and indeterminacy. This sequence shot in first person view plunges us into a technological timeline in which our avatar sees his identity slipping away from him as he tries to illuminate its various representations.
(+) "On January 31st, there will be 7 days left to see the exhibition. On February 1st, there will be 6 days left to see the exhibition. On February 2nd, there will be 5 days left to see the exhibition. On February 3rd, there will be 4 days left to see the exhibition. On February 4th, there will be 3 days left to see the exhibition. On February 5th, there will be 2 days left to see the exhibition. On February 6th, there will be 1 days left to see the exhibition."
10:10, 2020 Film 4K, 19’00'', 65inch TV, Swiss Balls, Audio Headphones Production Le Fresnoy - Studio National des Arts Contemporains
(+) It's ten past ten and time stands still on the watches in advertisements. A brand logo proudly appears in the center of the V formed by the two hands. The consensus hour. Here time drags on and then starts again. A succession of extraordinarily vain events is in progress. The protagonists don’t worry too much, the path seems to be clearly indicated. Their gestures slide and repeat across the surface of the screen. The set takes some initiatives but no one really pays any attention. So the story has many false starts, nothing happens and the real stutters and stammers. The vessels overflow but no longer communicate.
(+) 10¢ collective attempts is a sound installation simulating randomly and continuously 3 sound-interactions normally coming from a group of people. Laughter, applause, and a mantra. Each interaction is made up of 100 recordings made by 100 different individuals, paid $0.10 on the Amazon Mechanical Turk website, a platform launched by amazon.com in 2005 to hire remotely located "crowdworkers" to perform discrete on-demand tasks that computers are currently unable to do. The recordings are then broadcast simultaneously but randomly to simulate a group recording. A diffusion which by its cohabitation of different rhythms and sound textures testifies to a break-up of the participants, and the impossibility of gathering. A report of each financial transaction is displayed on a A4 laser-printed piece of paper, hanged on a clipboard below each speaker.
Watch a video example here / Listen to audio samples here.
(+) John asks George and George answers him. From suggestions to suggestions John enters a virtuous marketing circle. A story without an end. This scenario was based on real patents for new techniques and advertising technologies to aim and target consumers more precisely, that you can find online. A selection of diagrams extracted from those patents are screen-printed on Ikea furnitures that are also present in the film. the Ikea tables are presented together with the film.
Caption Art Bot, 2019 Collection of 356 images, 1 image per day, Tablet, diaporama Complete collection here
(+) A work of Art was submited every day to Microsoft's artificial stupidity Caption Bot during the course of 2019. The results were published every day on Instagram.
Alice & John, 2017 Film HD, 5’24'', 16:9, ST, Tablets, loop
(+) Alice & John is a conversation between Alice, an Artificial intelligence to chat with people online, and John Lennon. The conversation is made of Alice's answers to each sentence of Lennon famous song; 'Imagine'. Then starts a dialogue of the deaf between an out of date anthem of hope, and the arrogants answers of a blond and anorexic chatbot, dancing on a smartphone displaying John Lennon and Yoko Ono's videoclip from 1971.
What's left to be seen, 2016 HD, 23'03'', 16:9, ST
(+) Travel is the movement of people between relatively distant geographical locations, you may understand the word « distant » in a broader sense. It can be one way or a round trip, as long as you remember where you began. Travel can also include relatively short stays between successive movements. Navigation is the process of monitoring and controlling any movement from one place to another. Navigation, in a broader sense, can refer to any skill or study that involves the determination of position and direction. wether it’s land navigation, marine navigation, aeronautic navigation, space navigation, or somewhere else. Time is exhausted, space is mapped, and we have the gift of ubiquity. Landscapes or wallpaper ? We are spectators of our own representations, we move from one paradox to another and we take pictures of other pictures. "in real life" is a vague idea. Representation and experience are two porous notions.
Olivier Bémer
is a visual artist based in Paris. Through films, installations, objects and prints,
his work explores our relationship to technology as a mean of representation,
and depict an adulterated reality in which archetypes simulate but fail to represent.
Function is then diverted from form and machine from learning.
