New Page 1

Practice as LifeSpan

Spidernet the wood << / >> Imlostinparis

Terra Incognita / Isla Ociosidad / 06

2006 / MAM, Paris / Spring 2006 / TATE MODERN, London / Summer 06

R&Sie(n) / Pierre Huyghe

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

HOW FLATNESS IS REVERSABLE / Terra incognita is an island which only recently appeared in the Antarctic continent, as a result of climatic global warming and the subsequent merging of ices. Here, the ice white albino penguin can be also be found. Their differences of color produce their rejection from the penguin colony. In the icy winter wind, their loneliness become the main factor of their progressive freezing and their upredictable death.

Our installation unfolded as a series of surfaces on 200m², made from honeycomb aluminium. Its form was generated using a parametric script, and was manufactured by controlling milling water jets through the computational script. The single surface was then stretched and sheared by counterweights consisting of different volumes of water that represent different volumes of melted Antarctic ice. Amidst this unstable balance stood a robotic albino penguin whose only gesture was the occasional blinking of an eyelid. More the water in the counter balances is evaporating itself in the climate condition of the indoor Museum, more the artificial and aluminium island is re-defining its own flatness.

This process is talking about the instability, indeterminism of the biotopes. It's talking how the the warming of the climate is deeply introducing conditions of uncertainty ness.

The Odyssey is the story in three steps ;

- the report on the real situation of Antarctica

- the scanning of the territories emerging from the melting of the snow

- a re-development of the process of instability in two place / the Tate and the Mam

Terra Incognita took place at the MAM, Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, installed in the exhibition “Park Celebration” by Pierre Huyghe, March 10^th to April 23^rd, 2006, and at the Tate Gallery, London, July-August, 2006

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Terra Incognita

Paris, Mam, Tate Modern, 2006, “Park Celebration” by Pierre Huyghe

Architect: R&Sie(n)… Paris

Artist: Pierre Huyghe

Creative team: François Roche, Stéphanie Lavaux

Scripts: Julien Blervaque

Partners: Camille Lacadee, Clarisse Labro

Key dimensions: 200 m2

Client: Museum of Contemporary Art, Paris

Curating: Hans Ulrich Obrist

Cost: 50 000 euros

Text: Climate and Geographical report from South Pole

Scenario:
1) Reporting on the situation of Antarctica, through an odyssey in the South Pole

2) Scanning a territory (cap of a small mountain) emerging from the melting of the snow

3) Re-parametrising the unstable shape for a appearing / disappearing movement

4) Milling by 3 axes water jet Aluminum Honeycomb surfaces

5) Stretching up the surfaces by water counterweights, to provoke the return to flatness through the slow evaporation of the water, in the warm condition of the museum.

6) Including an animatronics Albinos Penguin

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1) Report from Antarctica / Fall 2005