Inventing connections, subverting techniques, searching for side effects, this is the relationship that Viven Roubaud (b. 1986, lives and works in Nice) engages in with the systems he creates. Whatever the mechanisms he produces (an explosion of feathers, a pollen storm, dancing brooms, stalactites on an IV, a mobile and pictorial printer…); it is above all their nature that predominates. In most cases, he uses “objects that help us live”—“downgraded” products, as he calls them—that he salvages from their urban abandon and dissects until he has diverted them from their initial use, thereby revealing other uses. They’re like reformulated objects, constructed by occasionally opposing cross-flows and energies. The work reveals itself through repeated observation, tests, trials and accidents.

For his exhibition at the Palais de Tokyo, he uses the building as a medium, first of all revealing the foundations of the ceiling with inverted lighting. By producing exploding fireworks in plexiglass tubes full of oil suspended from the ceiling, the artist imposes time distortion on a split-second process. Finally, saw blades continuously shedding mattresses form strange mechanical ballets that float in the Trois Coupoles space.

This exhibition benefits from the support of Safia El Maqui (Monaco).

Acknowledgements: Jeanne Zéler (Bruxelles), Sonia Pastor (Nice), Luc Clément et l’agence Outremer (Nice), SMT (Monaco), La Station (Nice) et Apex France (La Fouillouse).