François Dey
François Dey, born 1981, Switzerland, studied electronic engineering in Fribourg and at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam. He took part of residencies at IFP in Beijing, Jan van Eyck Academy in Maastricht is represented by Galerie van Gelder in Amsterdam.
‘How has public space been rendered to an imaginary domain?’
Dey’s research proposes to focus on the relationship between undertakings in public space and their depictions. On the one hand the documentation of experiences as it ultimately becomes fiction. On the other, how undertaking of actions can influence the everyday thinking perspective. Through this research, how the understanding of public space is mediated through images in contrast with physical experiences is being questioned.
A study will draw a possible parallel between the medium film and public space. More specifically; the relationship between the actor and the structure of the public space and how different forms would allow the viewer to participate in its construction instead of directing him into a specific reasoning.
In the essay Chance’s Territory (Effects, magazine for new art theory, 1983) Ericka Beckman concludes with wondering if film has to relinquish its authority, in order to let the spectator think along if they seize the chance to do so. She stresses the constancy in which the viewer sits, experiences the ‘now’ of every image moment. She states, the film viewer is more easily affected by what is closer to him, and wonders if a state of reflection asks for more distance. Similarly, we could think of how public space could be designed or understood in a way the public would feel they could take part of it. Can the actor of public space, under constant stimulation, really feel the ‘now’? Do they keep being directed by the structure and conduct themself in order not to jump out of the frame?
The research would like to seek different artistic strategies, which allow another understanding of the now, the situation in which one finds himself. How practically one activates, like E. Beckman writes, the eyes under the eyes, an awareness of what’s going on.