HIC is an exhibition featuring research. HIC exhibits two years of research conducted by a group called La Forme des Idées (The Form of Ideas), on the subject of “Localizations”. The group includes people from the Villa Arson and from the art schools of Lyon and Montpellier: students, alumni, teachers and outsiders collaborating on the project. The exhibition is called HIC because HIC means HERE in Latin (ICI in French) (the French mostly use the expression “hic et nunc” to mean “here and now”), thus referring to localization, the subject of these two years of research; HIC can also mean that there is a problem (what we call a “hic” in French) concerning the meaning of the word “here” (“ici”), and this is a good thing, because if we don’t have a problem, then we don’t have research either. It is this “hic” that the exhibition now strives
to share, exhibiting the research, but also including the exhibition itself in the process of research. With all due excitement, but without the related hic-cups. “Localizations” (“Des localisations” in French) refers of course to “delocalization”, in an era where globalization also means many companies delocalizing to places where exploiting man is more easily done; but the grammatical plural and indefinite forms primarily indicate that the ways in which we localize ourselves and localize things have changed to the point that we can no longer refer to a single localization technique, or to a simple local situation compared to a global one. In truth, today we use mental tools to situate ourselves (representations of here in relation to there, spatialization techniques, imaginary views of space) that are very different from the ones we used before digital technology, satellites or internet. HIC strives to review the consequences of what localization is becoming, along with their necessary breaking points and increasing lack of definition. Not only does the notion of localization apply naturally to the field of technology (think of how popular GPS systems have become), but it can also apply to the fields of geometry and of various social sciences; however the challenge of La forme des Idées is to confront a philosophical view of these problems with artistic practices ; not in order to apply these ideas (thus creating a situation where artists would have to illustrate the ideas suggested by philosophers) , nor in order to comment (creating a situation where philosophers would be interpreting pre-existing works of art): the idea is rather to collaborate in such a way that ideas belong neither to one side nor the other, but give rise to an exchange, and evolve in the context of seminars and workshops reuniting artists and theorists, students and people with professional experience. From its inception, La Forme des Idées divided into four distinct groups, each with their own objectives and viewpoints: HORLA, NEXUS, SPATIUM and GYPSY.
If this were a classic exhibition, we would just say that the curator for HIC was Julien Bouillon; but as the exhibition concerns research (and as the research also questions the exhibition), we will rather say that Julien Bouillon serves as curator: he merely directs the encampment of the research in the exhibition space, occasionally adding a touch of his own.
With works signed by :
Fayçal Baghriche, Frédéric Bauchet, Jean-Pierre Bertrand, Burkard Bluemlein,
Zoé Bornot, Sophie Bueno-Boutellier, Daniel Buren, Vincent Céraudo, Marielle Chabal, Étienne Chambaud, Lorraine Châteaux, Nicolas Clair, Benjamin Collet, Esméralda Costa, Alexandra Czmil, Lætitia Delafontaine & Grégory Niel, Nicolas Despax, Noël Dolla, Jessica Dupuis, Lisa Duroux, Pierre Fisher, Pierre Gaignard, Nicolas Gimbert, Noé Grenier, Yasmina Hatem & Sandra Lorenzi, Benjamin Hugard, Nicolas Kozerawski, Nicolas Lebrun, Maud Maffei, Zora Mann, Émilie Marc & Lucille Uhlrich, Quentin Maussang, Nicolas Muller, Roman Ondák, Marion Orel, Élodie Petit, Pascal Poulain, Maxime Rizard, Ludovic Sauvage, Emmanuelle Segura, Antoine Sylvain, Nicolas Témieau, Rémi Vacherot.
Curator : Julien Bouillon, artist and teacher at the Villa Arson
