|7

Guggenheim Museum-Cinema-in-the-Round | 2008

Impression jet d'encre sous plexiglas
91,4 x 66 x 6,3 cm
Courtesy l'artiste, Gavin Brown's enterprise (New York)
Crdits : Mark Leckey
Jill Gasparina
Music foats around in the aether of the WorldWide Web, waiting to be downloaded
1
Its great to do something that has some kind of effect on British culture ! This is good ! Cest par ces quelques mots que
le laurat Mark Leckey introduisit son (bref) discours de remerciements, lors de la trs hollywoodienne crmonie de remise
du Turner Prize en 2008. Bien que la prsence scnique de Sir Nicholas Serota, directeur de la Tate Gallery et prsident du
jury, ne soit pas aussi diante que celle dun Robert De Niro ou dun Sean Connery, on se serait cru quelques instants dans
le monde enchant du cinma.
Il se trouve que luvre de Leckey est nourrie de la culture cinmatographique, dont il sapproprie rgulirement limagerie
(Vertigo dAlfred Hitchcock, Sunshine de Danny Boyle, Titanic de James Cameron, etc.) ou les techniques, notamment lorsquil
ralise des zoetropes

ces jouets optiques invents au XIX
e
sicle par William George Horner et Simon Stampfer, utilisant
la perception rtinienne pour produire des images en mouvement ou bien extrait de lhistoire du cinma danimation des
gures comme celle de Flix le chat, qui a ni par devenir une sorte de mascotte de son travail. Lartiste a pour habitude
de mettre en ligne des trailers de ses expositions. En 2008, avec Cinema-in-the-Round, il livre un essai vido sur les liens
entre son uvre et lhistoire du cinma (mais aussi avec celles de la tlvision et de la sculpture). Il a par ailleurs emprunt
le titre de son exposition Industrial Light and Magic qui fut prsente au Consortium Dijon en 2007 et lui valut de
recevoir le Turner Prize la clbre socit amricaine deffets spciaux ILM, liale de Lucaslm Ltd.
Its great to do something that has some kind of effect on British culture! This is good! It was with these words,
uttered at the very Hollywoodesque 2008 Turner Prize awards ceremony, that the winner Mark Leckey introduced
his (short) speech of thanks. Even though the stage presence of Tate director and jury chairman Sir Nicholas Serota
may not be as enlightening as that of actors like Robert De Niro or Sean Connery, for a few moments you would have
thought you were in the spellbinding lm world.
It so happens that Leckeys work is nurtured on lm culture, whose imagery he regularly appropriates (Alfred Hitch-
cocks Vertigo, Danny Boyles Sunshine, James Camerons Titanic, etc.), as well as its techniques, especially when he
produces zoetropes these optical toys invented in the 19
th
century by William George Horner and Simon Stampfer
using retinal perception to produce moving images or extracts from the history of animated lm gures like Felix
the Cat, which ended up becoming a kind of mascot of his work. The artist is in the habit of putting trailers for his
shows online. In 2008, with Cinema-in-the-Round, he came up with a video essay about the links between his work
and the history of lm (but also with the histories of television and sculpture). He incidentally borrowed the title for
his exhibition Industrial Light and Magic which was held at the Consortium in 2007 and earned him the Turner
Prize from the famous American special effects company ILM, a subsidiary of Lucaslm Ltd.
Music speaks to everyone and art doesn't
2

1
La musique
otte dans l'ther
du World Wide
Web en attendant
d'tre tlcharge.
David Toop, Ocean
of Sound, Kargo,
2004, p. 18.
2
Mark Leckey in
Coline Milliard,
The Domestication
of Mark Leckey:
A Q&A With the
Turner Prize Winner
About His Quest
Not to Make Art ,
Artinfo UK, 23 mai
2011.
8| |9
Cependant, dans une logique pop bien comprise, cest la
musique qui a demble port chez lui la promesse dun
monde culturel plus accessible : Quand je suis all la fac, je
voulais faire des peintures murales, jtais obsd par Diego
Rivera. Je voulais faire un art populiste. Jtais trs suspicieux
lgard de lart prtentieux et sur-intellectualis
3
, explique
Leckey, avant de prciser : Je pense que je cherchais juste un
langage qui tait hors des institutions. Et je crois que je suis
toujours intress par ce qui peut accomplir cela, ce qui peut
avoir un effet par del les trs troites frontires du monde
de lart
4
. Comme de nombreux artistes avant lui, il est all
chercher dans la musique un univers sufsamment tranger
lart, plus festif, excitant et vivant que le cortge inanim des
uvres trnant dans les galeries
5
. Il poursuit cette stratgie de
sortie (de fuite ?) du monde de lart, prsent que sa pratique
se focalise sur lusage dinternet et les mythologies autour de
la circulation de linformation
6
.
Sa culture personnelle sest en grande partie constitue par-
tir de la musique et des diffrentes pratiques qui lentourent.
Autrefois casual et raver, Leckey sest plus tardivement impli-
qu dans deux groupes, DonAteller et Jack Too Jack. Force
est de constater par ailleurs que la plupart de ses uvres
tournent autour du son et de la musique : de la ralisation
de posters utilisant des photographies de musiciens clbres
comme Little Richard celle de sculptures sonores (Borbo-
rygmus), dont certaines donnent lieu des performances,
linstar de la srie des BigBoxStatueAction au cours desquelles
lartiste confronte une sculpture appartenant la grande his-
toire moderniste (Epstein, Moore) un sound system activ
lors dvnements relevant la fois de la crmonie et du
concert. Leckey chante aussi. Lune de ses dernires vidos,
GreenScreenRefrigerator (2010), inspire par lcoute de
Roadrunner de Jonathan Richman, fonctionne comme
une chanson lyrique porte par un frigo Samsung la voix
autotune
7
.
Lartiste sest rcemment fait interviewer par Jarvis Cocker
sur la BBC (ce qui tend lui confrer une stature de pop
star de lart contemporain) et Nick Cave lui remit le Turner
Prize en 2008. Symboliquement, cest par la musique que
Leckey est revenu lart en 1999 avec son hit, Fiorucci Made
Me Hardcore, montage vido dune quinzaine de minutes
constitu dimages trouves de ftes, de raves et autres
soires. Il y dresse un portrait chronologique de la scne
club anglaise, de la n des annes 1970 au dbut des annes
1990, priode concidant avec sa jeunesse. la northern
soul succde la house, puis les premires raves, lacid house
et lre Madchester, avec leur cortge de tribus urbaines
spciques. Fiorucci Made Me Hardcore renvoie lhistoire
des casuals, qui trouve son origine au Royaume-Uni au
dbut des annes 1980. Certains hooligans se mettent alors
porter, au lieu des couleurs de leur club, du sportswear de
luxe (Fiorucci, Ellesse, Cerrutti, Sergio Tacchini, Fila, Lacoste,
etc.). Ces tenues soignes et chics leur permettent de ne pas
attirer lattention de la police et dinltrer plus facilement les
groupes de supporteurs ennemis.
En englobant la musique et les pratiques culturelles, vestimen-
taires, gestuelles, sociales, festives et narcotiques qui laccom-
pagnent, Fiorucci Made Me Hardcore fonctionne comme un
essai sur la culture underground
8
. Luvre ne relve cepen-
dant pas de lanthropologie visuelle, et Leckey ne tente pas
de livrer une version vido des crits de Dick Hebdige sur les
subcultures anglaises. Les images sont manipules, ralenties,
rptes, mises en boucle (au point de ressembler parfois des
GIF prhistoriques). Fiorucci montre ainsi quel point, comme
il lexpliquait rcemment, [s]a comprhension du sampling
et de lappropriation vient davantage de la musique
9
.
3
Entretien par
Julia Peyton-Jones
et Hans-Ulrich
Obrist, etc., See
We Assemble,
Londres/Cologne,
Serpentine Gallery/
Walther Knig,
2011, p. 33.
4
Ibid., p. 34.
5
Voir John A.
Walker, Cross-
Overs: Art into
Pop/Pop into Art,
Londres, Comedia /
Methuen, 1987.
6
Entretien avec
Brian Droitcour,
Interview with
Mark Leckey,
rhizome.org, 30
septembre 2009.
7
Its not like a
cut-up technique,
its more like how
I construct a song
or a track, mail
lauteur, 23
septembre 2011.
8
See We
Assemble, op. cit.,
p. 46.
9
Ibid., p. 34.
In a well grasped pop logic, however, it is music which
right away brought him the promise of a more acces-
sible cultural world: When I rst went to college, I went
there to make murals, I was obsessed with Diego Rivera.
I wanted to make populist art. I was very suspicious of
pretentious and over-intellectualised art,
3
explains
Leckey, before adding more specically: I guess I was
looking for some kind of language that could exist out-
side of the institutions. I guess I am still interested in
something that can do that, something that can have
an effect beyond the quite narrow margins of the art
world."
4
Like many artists before him, he went to music
in search of a world sufciently removed from art, more
festive, exciting and alive than the lifeless succession
of works lording it in galleries.
5
He is pursuing this exit
strategy (or is it an escape?) from the art world, now that
his activities are focusing on using the Internet and the
mythologies around the circulation of information.
6
His personal culture is largely made up of music and
the different practices surrounding it. Leckey, who used
to be a casual and a raver, has latterly been involved in
two groups, Donateller and Jack Too Jack. It must also be
noted that most of his works gravitate around sound and
music: from the production of posters using photographs
of famous musicians such as Little Richard, to that of
sound sculptures (Borborygmus), some of which give
rise to performances, like the BigBoxStatueAction series,
during which the artist puts a sculpture belonging to the
great history of modernism (Epstein, Moore) in front of a
sound system that is activated during events involving
both ceremony and concert. Leckey sings, too. One of his
latest videos, GreenScreenRefrigerator (2010), inspired by
listening to Jonathan Richmans Roadrunner, works
like a lyrical song performed by a Samsung Fridge with
a self-tuned voice.
7
The artist was recently interviewed by Jarvis Cocker on
the BBC (which tends to give him the stature of a pop
star of contemporary art) and Nick Cave handed him the
Turner Prize in 2008. Symbolically, it is through music
that Leckey returned to art in 1999 with his hit, Fiorucci
Made Me Hardcore, a video montage lasting about fteen
minutes made up of found footage of parties, raves and
other nocturnal pastimes. In it he draws up a chrono-
logical portrait of the English club scene, from the late
3
Interview with
Mark Leckey by
Julia Peyton-Jones
and Hans-Ulrich
Obrist, in See
We Assemble,
London/Cologne,
Serpentine Gallery/
Walther Knig,
2011, p. 33.
4
Ibid., p. 34.
5
See John A.
Walker, Cross-
Overs: Art into
Pop/Pop into Art,
London, Comedia/
Methuen, 1987.
6
Brian Droitcour,
Interview with
Mark Leckey",
rhizome.org, 30
septembre 2009.
7
Its not like a
cut-up technique,
its more like how
I construct a song
or a track, email
to the author, 23
September 2011.
Little Richard | 2003
Poster offset
121,9 x 90,2 cm
Courtesy l'artiste, Gavin Brown's enterprise (New York)
Crdits : Mark Leckey
Fiorucci Made Me Hardcore | 1999
DVD 15 ' (still)
Courtesy l'artiste, Gavin Brown's enterprise (New York)
Crdits : Mark Leckey
1970s to the early 1990s, a period that overlapped with
his youth. Northern soul is followed by house, then the
rst raves, acid house and the Madchester period, with
their procession of specic urban tribes. Fiorucci Made
Me Hardcore refers to the history of casual music, which
originated in the UK in the early 1980s. At that time,
instead of sporting the colours of their clubs, certain
hooligans started wearing luxury sportswear (Fiorucci,
Ellesse, Cerruti, Sergio Tacchini, Fila, Lacoste, etc.).
These chic and well-groomed clothes helped them not to
attract the attention of the police, and made it easier to
inltrate enemy supporter groups.
By encompassing music and the various cultural, sar-
torial, gestural, social, festive and narcotic habits going
hand-in-hand with it, Fiorucci Made Me Hardcore works
like an essay on the underground culture.
8
But the work
is not the result of visual anthropology, and Leckey does
not try to deliver a video version of Dick Hebdiges wri-
tings on English subcultures. The images are manipu-
lated, slowed down, repeated, and looped (to the point
where they at times look like prehistoric GIFs. Fiorucci
thus shows to what extent as he recently explained
[his] understanding of sampling and appropriation
came more from music.
9
In 1980, with the album Fourth World vol.1: Possible
Musics composed and produced with Brian Eno
Jon Hassell invented the idea of fourth world music,
combining inuences hailing from classical musical
traditions and a technological approach. In 1994, he
founded the Bluescreen group, whose name makes
reference to the visual inlay technique used in lm,
making it possible to juxtapose a subject on any kind of
background, and permitting spectacular associations,
be they Surrealist or exotic (this procedure is also used
to produce most publicity images showing a model in
a swimsuit on a paradise beach. Hassell thus adopted
this metaphor in musical ways, creating magical tex-
tures in sound, making something familiar sound fresh
and exotic by separating it from its background and
combining it with something new and startling.
10
This description, for which we are indebted to the English
musician and critic David Toop, applies perfectly to
Leckeys GreenScreen. If Fiorucci deals with the under-
ground culture, GreenScreen represents an essay on
intelligent technologies and all-pervading information
technology, operating by way of strange associations,
and juxtapositions. In the video, the image of a large
black high-tech Samsung fridge is inlaid on various
backgrounds, based on a principle which is above all
analog. Leckey uses this technique to compare different
objects and elements whose form but not their scale is
akin to that of the fridge (a black parallelepiped), like a
tower, a tree, an energy drink can, or a telephone. He
thus delivers nothing less than a lesson in comparative
sculpture. In the last few minutes of the video, after a
quite lengthy sequence in which the fridge describes its
own way of functioning in particular its technique for
producing cold , the artist reverts to the principle of the
greenscreen and produces a psychedelic montage where
the household appliance appears against a backdrop of
space images. This gradual crescendo forms a lyrical
manifesto where the artists technological enthusiasm
mingles with his attempt to produce a dematerialized
sculpture (in the tradition of Cinema-in-the-Round),
and represent intelligent, but invisible, environments,
in which we henceforth evolve.
11
Like Hassell, with the green screen Leckey has adopted
not a musical but a visual metaphor, enabling him to
create magical textures, and play with forms of exoti-
cism and novel effects, as well as explore the technolo-
gical world we are living in. The idea with the fridge is
that its a sculpture to me, but its a sculpture that can
talk. So what happens to sculpture once it stops being a
dumb thing and it can respond to you? This seems like a
massive change to me. Its an enormous paradigm shift.
Were no longer about making objects, we have to see
objects in terms of some other kind of relationship to
ourselves, more as something that we share the world
with.
12
Were technological beings, he still explains.
This is what we do, this is what we are. We use tools
and thats what makes a human. Were surrounded by
technology now, we live in an ambient environment,
technology is creating this eld, this visual and audio
eld.
13
To this ambient technological state Leckey thus
responds through a dematerialized art an approach
as such contrasting with that of advertising people
responsible for promoting mobile telephones and tele-
8
See We
Assemble, op. cit.,
p. 46.
9
Ibid., p. 34.
10
David Toop,
op. cit. p. 174.
11
See Anthony
Dunne and Fiona
Raby, Design Noir.
The Secret Life of
Electronic Objects,
Basel, Birkhuser,
2001.
12
See We
Assemble, op. cit.,
p. 37.
13
Ibid.
BigBoxStatueAction | 2003
Performance la Tate Britain
Courtesy l'artiste, Gavin Brown's enterprise (New York), Tate Britain (Londres)
12| |13
En 1980, Jon Hassell invente avec lalbum Fourth World vol. 1 :
Possible Musics compos et produit avec Brian Eno lide
de musique du quatrime monde qui combine inuences
issues de traditions musicales classiques et approche techno-
logique. En 1994, il fonde le groupe Bluescreen, dont le nom
fait rfrence la technique dincrustation visuelle utilise
au cinma, permettant de juxtaposer un sujet sur nimporte
quel fond, autorisant des associations spectaculaires, surra-
listes ou exotiques (procd utilis par ailleurs pour produire
la plupart des images de publicit montrant un modle en
maillot de bain sur une plage paradisiaque). Hassell adopte
ainsi cette mtaphore de manire musicale pour crer des
textures sonores magiques, faisant rsonner le familier de la
nouveaut et de lexotisme en lisolant de son contexte et en
le combinant des lments neufs et surprenants
10
.
Cette description, que lon doit au musicien et critique anglais
David Toop, sapplique merveille au GreenScreen de Leckey.
Si Fiorucci porte sur la culture underground, GreenScreen
constitue un essai sur les technologies intelligentes et linfor-
matique ambiante, fonctionnant par associations tranges et
juxtapositions. Dans la vido, limage dun grand frigo Samsung
noir hightech est incruste sur divers fonds selon un principe
avant tout analogique. Leckey utilise cette technique an de
comparer divers objets et lments dont la forme mais non
lchelle se rapproche de celle du frigo (un paralllpipde
noir) comme une tour, un arbre, une canette denergy drink
ou un tlphone. Il livre ainsi une vritable leon de sculpture
compare. Dans les dernires minutes de la vido, aprs une
squence assez longue au cours de laquelle le frigo dcrit
son propre mode de fonctionnement notamment sa tech-
nique de production du froid , lartiste revient au principe
du greenscreen et livre un montage psychdlique dans
lequel lappareil lectromnager apparat sur fond dimages
de lespace. Ce lent crescendo forme un manifeste lyrique
o lenthousiasme technologique de lartiste se mle sa
tentative de production dune sculpture dmatrialise (dans
la ligne de Cinema-In-The-Round) et de reprsentation des
environnements intelligents, mais invisibles, dans lesquels
nous voluons dsormais
11
.

Comme Hassell, Leckey a adopt avec lcran vert une mta-
phore non pas musicale mais visuelle, qui lui permet de crer
des textures magiques, de jouer de formes dexotisme et
deffets de nouveaut, mais aussi dexplorer le monde tech-
nologique dans lequel nous vivons. Lide avec le frigo, cest
quil sagit mes yeux dune sculpture, mais dune sculpture
qui parle. Alors, que se passe-t-il une fois quelle cesse dtre
une chose bte et quelle peut te rpondre ? Selon moi, il sagit
dun immense bouleversement. Cest un norme changement
de paradigme. Nous navons plus produire des objets, nous
devons regarder les objets dans le prisme de la relation que
nous entretenons avec eux, davantage comme quelque chose
avec quoi nous partageons le monde
12
. Nous sommes des
tres technologiques, explique-t-il encore. Cest ce que nous
faisons, cest ce que nous sommes. Nous utilisons des outils
et cest ce qui dnit un humain. Nous sommes prsent
encercls par la technologie, nous vivons dans un environ-
nement ambient, la technologie cre ce champ, ce champ
visuel et audio
13
. cet tat technologique ambient, Leckey
rpond donc par un art dmatrialis dmarche en cela
oppose celle des publicitaires en charge de promouvoir la
tlphonie mobile et les tlcommunications qui prtendent
rematrialiser le monde en illustrant leurs spots au moyen de
musiques acoustiques, et vivent une vraie romance avec le
renouveau folk, de Grizzly Bear Herman Dune en passant
par Keren Ann.
Plus que limagerie visuelle ou sonore (si une telle expression
a un sens), ce sont donc nos modes de relation technologique
au monde, et limaginaire exotique port par ce quatrime
monde enchant o les choses parlent (et mme chantent),
qui fournissent lartiste britannique le point de dpart dune
grande part de son travail actuel (comme de la tradition
musicale ambient). Leckey se saisit ainsi de la musique pour
sa capacit gnrer des formes culturelles, mais aussi en
ce quelle sappuie, comme les arts visuels selon lui
14
, sur un
dispositif technologique et des moyens de communication.
Dans Fiorucci, on ne peut pas suivre les mouvements des
danseurs et on ne peut que difcilement identier certains
morceaux classiques du clubbing, totalement transforms
par lartiste (un principe de montage et daltration utiliss
outrance par DonAteller). Lensemble frappe surtout par
son caractre mlancolique et sa lenteur, aux antipodes de
lnergie qui animait cette jeunesse dfonce et hdoniste
que lon voit danser en boucle. La vido nessaie pas de mimer
lexprience de la danse, ou dentraner le spectateur dans
une quelconque transe. Elle dgage au contraire une aura
spectrale. Quand je regarde Fiorucci aujourdhui, jai limpres-
sion que cest un lm de fantmes. Ctait suppos tre une
clbration de la vie et de la vitalit, mais il y a quelque chose
communications claiming to be re-materializing the
world by illustrating their spots with acoustic forms of
music, which are enjoying a real romance with the folk
revival, from Grizzly Bear to Herman Dune, by way of
Keren Ann.
More than visual and acoustic imagery (if such an
expression makes any sense), it is thus our modes of
technological relationship to the world, and the exotic
imagination conveyed by this fourth enchanted world
where things talk (and even sing), which provide the
British artist with the springboard for a large share of his
current work (as with the ambient musical tradition). So
Leckey grasps music for its capacity to give rise to cultu-
ral forms, but also insomuch as it relies just like the
visual arts in his view
14
on a technological system and
means of communication (from this viewpoint, his video
work reminds us of Nam June Paiks Global Groove
15
).
In Fiorucci, it is impossible to follow the dancers move-
ments and it is only with difculty that we can identify
certain classical clubbing pieces, completely transformed
by the artist (a principle of editing and alteration used
to the hilt by DonAteller). The whole thing is striking
above all for its melancholy character and its slowness,
the very opposite of the energy driving that stoned and
hedonistic youth we see dancing in a loop. The video
does not attempt to imitate the dance experience, or draw
the onlooker into any kind of trance. On the contrary, it
gives off a ghostlike aura. When I look Fiorucci now, it
feels like a ghost lm. It was meant to be a celebration
of life and vitality, but theres something haunted about
the whole thing. Theres something ghostly about it,
16

Leckey explains.
11
Voir Anthony
Dunne et Fiona
Raby, Design Noir.
The Secret Life of
Electronic Objects,
Ble, Birkhuser,
2001.
10
David Toop,
op. cit., p. 174.
12
See We
Assemble,
op. cit., p. 37.
13
Ibid.
14
Coline Milliard,
op. cit.
15
Thanks to
Pierre Leguillon for
having suggested
this idea to me.
16
See We
Assemble, op. cit.,
p. 35.
14
Coline Milliard,
op. cit.
Borborygmus | 2008
Vue de lexposition Mark Leckey Resident , Klnischer Kunstverein (Cologne), 2008
Courtesy Galerie Buchholz (Berlin, Cologne)
|15 14|
Fiorucci is more the outcome of personal memory than
generational testimony. It must be looked at like a highly
subjective cluster talking about the melancholy feeling
we may experience when confronted with memories
of our past youth. The phantom-like dimension the
artist talks about is in fact that of a bygone day and
age. But this sense of temporal remove is doubled up by
a technological kind of remove. The poor quality of the
images and effects used shows that Fiorucci belongs to
the age of analog video which, while not that far away
(1999), is nevertheless already no longer our age. In a
secondary way, this video is also the product of a day and
age when the Internet was still not operating like the vast
popular and wild archive
18
it has become, when we had
to patiently collect materials which are nowadays acces-
sible with just a few clicks an age which ended with the
development of free video platforms like YouTube and
Dailymotion, and more generally Web 2.0. In a word,
the very nature of the perforce outmoded video image
helps to accentuate the melancholy of Fiorucci and lend
it that phantom-like dimension referred to by Leckey.
The obsolescence of video production, publication and
distribution technologies thus seems to predispose this
medium to naturally generate still lifes. Many of the
British artists sculptural and musical works can actually
be looked at as technological still lifes. Like cultures,
technologies pass. The high-tech look of GreenScreen is
not a naive attempt to grab some kind of technological
modernity, but the bright promise of its upcoming disap-
pearance. A monument to the necessarily eeting glory
of Bluray, Samsung, Google and NASA.
translated by Simon Pleasance & Fronza Woods
18
Bettina Funcke,
Pop or Populus,
Berlin, Sternberg
Press, 2010, p. 163.
dhant dans tout cela
15
, raconte Leckey.
Fiorucci relve plus de la mmoire personnelle que du
tmoignage gnrationnel. Il doit tre regard comme une
constellation hautement subjective qui parle du sentiment
mlancolique que lon peut prouver face aux souvenirs de
sa jeunesse passe. La dimension fantomatique dont parle
lartiste est de fait celle dune poque rvolue. Mais ce sen-
timent dloignement temporel est redoubl dune distance
dordre technologique. La qualit pauvre des images et des
effets utiliss montre que Fiorucci appartient lre de la
vido analogique qui, si elle nest pas si loin de nous (1999),
nest dj pourtant plus la ntre. Accessoirement, cette vido
est aussi le produit dune poque o Internet ne fonctionnait
pas encore comme la vaste archive sauvage
16
et populaire
quelle est devenue, et o il fallait patiemment collecter des
matriaux aujourdhui accessibles en quelques clics une
poque qui a pris n avec le dveloppement de plateformes
dhbergement vido gratuit comme Youtube ou Dailymotion,
et plus gnralement du web 2.0. En somme, la nature mme
de limage vido, forcment dpasse, contribue accentuer
la mlancolie de Fiorucci et lui confrer cette dimension
fantomatique voque par Leckey. Lobsolescence des tech-
nologies de production, ddition et de diffusion de la vido
semble ainsi prdisposer ce mdium gnrer naturelle-
ment des vanits. Beaucoup duvres sculpturales et musi-
cales de lartiste britannique peuvent en fait tre regardes
comme des vanits technologiques. Comme les cultures, les
technologies passent. Le look high-tech de GreenScreen nest
pas une tentative nave de saisir une quelconque modernit
technologique, mais la promesse clatante de sa prochaine
disparition. Un monument la gloire forcment phmre
de Bluray, Samsung, Google et la NASA.
15
Kaledoscope,
op. cit.
16
Bettina Funcke,
Pop or Populus,
Berlin, Sternberg
Press, 2010, p. 163.
GreenScreenRefrigeratorAction | 2010
Rfrigrateur Samsung, dispositif de projection, vido digitale, fond vert, bombe de refroidissement (dtail)
Dimensions variables
Courtesy l'artiste, Gavin Brown's enterprise (New York)
Crdits : Mark Leckey
Sound System | 2002
Sound system, amplis, haut-parleurs, platines, tourne-disques, disque actate
259,1 x 259,1 x 96,5 cm
Courtesy l'artiste, Gavin Brown's enterprise (New York)
Crdits : Mark Leckey