“By definition, an automaton mimics life, but it essentially does only one thing over and over again. For me, the exhibition is like an automaton.” Philippe Parreno
Philippe Parreno’s questioning of the conditions in which objects appear and are presented is paired with a reflection on the amount of time that the work is visible. Hence time is an essential component of his work – “an object can exist for the time of the exhibition and then disappear afterwards.” Il Tempo del Postino, orchestrated in 2007 with Hans Ulrich-Obrist in Manchester, pushed the logic of the temporal loop to its limit by transforming an exhibition into an opera. Subsequently, Parreno breaks away from the traditional distinction between the moment of creation in the artist’s studio and the work’s public diffusion in an exhibition. He overturns this tradition by proposing that only the length of the exhibition can truly reveal the artwork.
The concept of the time code, which was invented by Jean-Pierre Beauviala, has been central to Parreno’s work from the very beginning. He conceives of his exhibitions according to a temporal mechanism that systematically cuts them into precise sequences, enabling him to create different temporalities or moments in a selfsame space. In 2006, at Esther Schipper Gallery in Berlin, Parreno announced that the events within the gallery would take place at a specific tempo determined by the flashing lights of the marquee at the entrance on the outside the building.
The marquee’s lighting variations corresponded to the different sonic, visual, and olfactory combinations within the space. With this marquee, the artist invited the visitor to a show instead of an exhibition, and the visitors became—for the length of their stay—spectators, perhaps even actors. Indeed, Parreno transforms exhibitions into a kind of musical score that is played in time and space, with consistencies and variations. He alters the perception of space with skillful choreographies and turns the exhibition into an automaton. In 2007, he programmed an 18th century automaton to write out “What Do You Believe, Your Eyes or My Words?” Through this he questions the relationships between illusion and reality, and nature and artifice. The artist’s interest in making the imaginary a reality, and vice versa, can also be found at the heart of his film on Marilyn Monroe, built around two algorithms by which a computer imitates the star’s voice and a robot her handwriting.