global_projet: @

_Le Clair Obscur intends to explore problems linked to the question of the relationship between Man and Machine, specifically how Man, his thinking, his social organization, his modes of action and interaction are modified by his relationships to the computer and to the internet. These modifications are experienced on several levels, from the worldly to the social, and also include more intimate levels, biological and neuronal.

_@ attempts to problematize our dependent relationships to the web and to technology : - what mutation of society is triggered by digital technology? - what mutation happens in our bodies, in our synaptic networks?

_@ is a research piece, a work in progress over several years which is presented in several different forms and modules: audiovisual pieces, dance/ digital arts, web‑theatre, performances, installations, laboratories, workshops, lectures, participative workshops, etc ...

_All these modules incorporate the global architecture of the project, which, like all open questions, answer each other on several different levels. _The complete form of @ will be executed in a laid-out spectator’s pathway/ journey which will include all the different modules and forms. _Each module explores a level of interaction between Man and Machine and can exist and be shown independently of the others.

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#5@|°PE5

A web-theare performance on virtual flesh, after Sluts by Dennis Cooper

(2011-2013).

@.2: SleEp1nGBe@#/Ty

(installation/performance)

Sleeping Beauty v 2.0 or the brain : epicenter of the networks

(creation April 2012)

@.1: PR•|•g (dance/digital arts)

Performance about digitizing and the disappearance of bodies

(creation April 2011)

@.3:Pu_p3ts (dance/digital arts)

An experiment with computer-assisted dance

(creation 2012-2014).

#D@T@W@||

Interactive video installations based on generative codes.

(creation October 2011)

#OPENLASE Interactive installation intrinsically linking, tracking, laser and acoustic waves.

(creation November 2012)

@.3:PU_P3TS

Conception/ Space/ Coordination/ Lighting:

Frédéric DESLIAS

Conception/ Audiovisual creation:

Fabrice PLANQUETTE

Video Creation:

NOHISTA

Performers:

Lucia MENDOZA & Julien BÉZY

Choreography: Lucia MENDOZA & Julien BÉZY & “Yum” KEIKO TAKAYAMA

Exterior eye:

Christine CARADEC

Software/ Hardware development:

Olivier GUILLERMINET // Fabrice PLANQUETTE // Armand AHMADI

Light management:

Simon DESPLEBIN

Production: Le Clair Obscur

Coproductions: Relais Culturel Régional 2angles, Gare au Théâtre de Vitry-sur-Seine, la Ménagerie de verre.

Other Support: Le Cargö – SMAC de Caen, L’école supérieure d’arts et médias de Caen – Cherbourg, Les Ateliers Intermédiaires CCN de Caen/ Basse Normandie, la Comédie de Caen – Centre Dramatique National de Normandie, le Centre des arts d’Enghien-les-Bains – scène conventionnée pour les écritures numériques, le Centre national de la danse.

Le Clair Obscur is a company registered in the Basse-Normandie region, and is supported also by the General Council of Calvados, the city of Caen and l’Odia Normandie.

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In its quest for total art, Le Clair Obscur continues its research on synesthesis and the cognitive fields, by the interaction/ synchronization of multimedia tools and the body, questioning the place of the being, the human being, onstage, in his environment – and in a digital environment which is too much for him. To go farther, we seek as yet undiscovered modes of communication between the computer and the actor/ dancer, which would replace hearing and seeing when approaching the tangible.

The myo-stimulators (which are Sportelec© electro-muscular stimulators) may open a new experimental field in the exploration of relationships between the body/ dance/ technology: in this case it might literally relay, traversed by sound, in the same fashion as it does image. These stimulators could increase the level of precision in the interaction between the dancer and his environment, but not necessarily using the brain – the process would drive data directly to his muscles.

The principle is not exclusive, it is a supplementary tool which does not imply that the bodies connected are passive bodies. It is however our starting point.

A dance/ digital arts performance with connected bodies

PU_P3TS, or PUPPETS, is a performance which presents an augmented nervous system, in a work which touches on muscle, machine, on an organic, intrinsic, digital whole ...

The aesthetic framework for the performance has been laid out, requiring impulses, nerve, and the need to constantly push back our limits. These communication interfaces explore in depth the limits of our bodies and the ambiguous relationships which the contemporary individual has with his digital environment: are we exponential or enslaved bodies?

After @.1:Prologue where a crazed machine digitizes to such a degree that a body disappears. After @.2: SleepingBeauty, where in an absolute stasis, we critically change the role of the body to a simple, sensitive interface at the center of a web 2.0 structure. Here the bodies awaken, become electric, return to life, a different kind of life.

But as the work progresses we do not know who controls whom: if the dancer is the marionette being stimulated, or if he has taken over the structure and is instead interpreting the signals and controlling them. PU_P3TS, in stages, plays with this back-and-forth, seeking to thwart this duality.

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The Structure

The dancers lie on the floor. The image as projected in the video is relayed to the audience via a mirror hung at a 45° angle. In the mirror we see the bodies moving as if freed from the laws of gravity, in a three-dimensional video structure, as if inscribed on a white canvas like the anatomy tableaux of the Renaissance painters, a force field of symmetry created in the organization of the bodies and the trajectories of the dancers.It is a dance/ multimedia performance, but we are also working in an improbable and troubling laboratory where they experiment on the bodies of actors/ dancers/ human guinea pigs.

Stimulators

Animated by impulses generated by the stimulators, the dancers add to them, interpreting the muscular contractions with their own movements based on a choreographic score. So they are not marionnettes but dancers playing with this very ambiguity and with what they are feeling.

There is a sort of complicity which is established little by little between Man and the computer – going as far as possession: on one hand the ecstatic body reclaims its rights in a primitive dance, and on the other, the body freed of its conscience relearns movement, in a different kind of trance between his “self” and the media machine.

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TEASER

http://www.leclairobscur.net/#3-pupp3ts

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CALENDAR OF CREATION:

2012: Work in progress October 2012 - Residency at the Cargö (SMAC of Caen) - Residencies at the Ateliers Intermédiaires (Caen) - Residency at the ésam (Ecole Supérieure des Arts et Médias de Caen/Cherbourg)

November 3, 2012 Presentation under the auspices of the Nordik Impakt Festival (Caen) + Carte Blanche to Le Clair Obscur at ésam* (with the #OPENLASE and #DATAWALL projects)

December 12, 2012 Presentation under the auspices of the OSOSPHERE Festival (Strasbourg) + Presentation in diptych with the @.2:SleepingBeauty Project

2013: Work in progress February 2013 Residency + End of Project at 2angles (Flers)

April 2013 Residency at the Halle aux Granges/ the CDN de Caen.

May 23, 2013 Presentation at the MAL de LAON

July 4, 5, 6, 2013 Festival “We are not going to Avignon” (Vitry/Seine)

September 27, 2013 Festival Souterrain porte VII (TOTEM - Nancy)

2014: Creation January 6- 17, 2014 Residencies at the Ménagerie de verre (Paris) and at the Centre national de la danse (Pantin)

March 25- 29, 2014 Festival “Strange Cargo” at the Ménagerie de verre (Paris) + Presentation in diptych with the @.2:SleepingBeauty Project

April 28- May 10, 2014 Residency at the Centre des Arts d’Enghien les Bains

June 20, 2014 CREATION - Festival Les Bains Numériques at the Centre des Arts d’Enghien les Bains

October 27, 2014Festival Avis de grand frais ! at the Centre Chorégraphique National de Caen

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LE CLAIR OBSCUR:

Since its inception the company has chosen pluridisciplinary work . It is based at the Ateliers Intermédiaires in Caen, bringing together artists from the visual arts, the digital and acoustic arts, dancers and actors who experience it all onstage, in the horizontal mode. And the performing arts “product” is freed from all its labels.

The experiment began in 2001 at the Universite of Performing Arts of Caen, with a first creation, Entre Intérieurs, based on Maeterlinck’s Les Aveugles. It was remarked upon by the CDN de Normandie, then by the Workcenter of Jerzy Grotowski (Pontedera - Italy). The CDN - Comédie de Caen followed the company from 2004 to 2006 with training, then Laboratories. A first attempt was made: Panser/Agir – 1st attempt – 12 sorts des ramas. This Laboratory set up an exchange between those in attendance at La Boussole (a center for daytime hosting of the homeless in Caen) and the team, using writing, video testimony and active and collective participation onstage in a theatre/ multimedia structure. Two of the attendees, employed by the company would then be followed until they rejoined society.

Since 2006 le Clair-Obscur has worked on small experimental and multimedia scenic forms. Three Prototypes – specific performances were created, based on the text MANQUE by Sarah Kane: ORATORIO, FAKE and HERMSELF.

This work was then successively accompanied by the D.M.D.T.S. (Aide à la maquette) and the CDN of Normandie; La Ferme du Buisson (in coproduction for Labomatics Théâtres 2007 and 2008); the CCN de Caen Basse-Normandie (in the accueil studio program - 18H60); La Tannerie (Barjols-83). The different modules fused in 2008 for the creation of MANQUE (SARAH KANE) - ORATORIO ÉLECTRONIQUE at the Ferme du Buisson.

At the same time, from 2007 to 2010, HERMSELF benefited from residencies at the Tannerie (Barjols), at the CDN of Normandie, at the CCN of Caen/Basse Normandie, at the Panta Théâtre (Caen) and at the ÉSAM (Caen). It was also presented in stages at the Panta, at the ésam (Caen), then at the Colombier in Bagnolet in November, 2009.

HERMSELF was awarded the Dance and New Technology Grand Prize at the LES BAINS NUMERIQUES FESTIVAL in 2010 and was granted residencies and co-productions at the Centre des Arts in Enghien-les-Bains as well as at [Ars]Numerica/ Montbelliard and received production support from DICREAM. The final version of HERMSELF was presented at the Centre des Arts in Enghien-les-Bains on November 18, 2011.

@, the new modular works project of the collective (2011/2013) examines the place of the body in the era of the internet and of everything digital. Co-produced by the Ménagerie de Verre and by the ODACC in 2011, it received aide à la maquette from DICRéAM in 2010 and was hosted in residency at the Chartreuse (CNES Villeneuve-les-Avignons).

@.1:Prolog is presented at the Ménagerie de verre, as part of the Étrange Cargo Festival in March 2011, then in Caen in the Nordik Impakt Festival in October, 2011. @.2:SleepingBeauty was created in April 2012 for the ]Interstice[ Festival in Caen, and was also hosted by the OSOSPHERE Festival (Strasbourg) in December 2012. @.3:PU_PETS, presented as a prototype at a “Carte Blanche” at the ESAM for Nordik Impakt 2012 and was also hosted by the OSOSPHERE Festival (Strasbourg) in December 2012, and continued towards its creation in 2013 and 2014.

LE CLAIR-OBSCUR IS A COMPANY REGISTERED IN THE BASSE-NORMANDIE REGION AND IS ALSO SUPPORTED BY THE GENERAL COUNCIL OF CALVADOS, THE CITY OF CAEN, AND L’ODIA NORMANDIE.

(more information: http://www.leclairobscur.net)

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Credits :

Page 4 : 2013 - @.3:Pu_p3ts (prototype) with Lucia Mendoza - Photographer : Thierry DepagnePage 5 : 2013 - @.3:Pu_p3ts (prototype) with Lucia Mendoza and Julien Bézy - Photographer : Thierry Tiko and Alban Van Wassenhove

BIOS :

Frédéric Deslias :: director :: musician http://leclairobscur.net

He was born in 1978. After studying electronics he attended the University of Caen in the Performing Arts department and founded Le Clair Obscur which he has directed since 2002. He worked in both theatre and dance as a composer and acoustic creator, for David Bobée, Eric Lacascade, Héla Fatoumi & Eric Lamoureu and Médéric Legros ... he also created several soundtracks for film and created several musical projects with the collective Purée Noire.

Trained in the digital arts and programming under MAX/MSP, his research soon moved toward interactive installations and sensitive pathways: Décadrage 2009 and 2010 at the Beaux Arts Museum in Caen – Interactive Route and Remixes in situ, in video tableaux. HERMSELF was awarded the Dance and New Technologies Grand Prize at the Les Bains Numériques Festival 2010. He has also created musical therapy multimedia installations to develop the senses of autistic patients.

Fabrice Planquette :: acoustic creation :: programming http://pan-etc.net/

Along with his many experimental musical projects, FP also participates in open collaborations in the stage arts, in acoustic poetry, installations and video. He has also participated in many creations by theatre and dance companies since 1997. He was the recipient of a grant for the Villa Kujoyama (Kyoto, Japan) in 2006. And beginning in 2007, he has invited other artists to join him in the A.lter S.essio group to create a series of performative works based on the tight relationship of body/ image/ sound.

NOHISTA / Bruno Ribeiro :: Audiovisual Artist :: http://www.nohista.org/

Bruno Ribeiro, aka Nohista, is an audiovisual artist. Considering hearing and eyesight as a single sense, he plays with images on a sampler as if it were a musical instrument. In his audiovisual creations, his principal themes are perception and illusion, creating sensitive, immersive performances. A director, graphic artist and live performer, NOHISTA is also a member of the V-ATAK label.

Yum Keiko Takayama :: choreography :: interpretation

Having studied ballet, contemporary dance and butoh, she began creating solo performance pieces while also participating in interdisciplinary collective projects (dance, theatre, photography). As a member of the Sennichimae Blue Sky Dance Club (a neo- butoh company), she performed in all their pieces on tour, from 2000 to 2007 (visiting Japan, South Korea, France, the United States, Canada and Chile). Her solo performances were conceived in non-theatrical spaces with room for improvization especially when they are presented in galleries. Since 2007, she has been a member of the A.lter S.essio group as a choreographer, dancer and costume designer. She also teaches workshops open to all audiences.

Julien Bézy :: choreography :: interpretation

Having studied at the Académie Internationale de la Danse under Pierre-Yves Aubin and Mey-Ling Bisogno, Julien Bézy attended the Toulouse conservatory to specialize in contemporary dance. At the same time he studied psychology and the philosophy of art at the University of Toulouse le Mirail. He continued training at the IALS in Rome and at The Place in London. He continues to train regularly in ballet with Wayne Byars and Andreï Glegolski. As a dancer, he has performed in, among others Quand je ferme les yeux by Frédéric Jolivet, Jazz Ethnique by Georgette Kala-Lobe or Liaison by Stephane Loras. He has also been a jazz soloist with Eric Castry, and is currently a member of the Ariel et Furie theatre company under the direction of Volchitza Cabrini. Having earned his state teaching diploma in contempoary dance at the CND, he teaches at the Studio Harmonic, the Conservatory in Gagny and at the ADASE. As a choreographer, he is currently collaborating with the Berlin-based director and photographer Louis Vignat on the Sneezin’ project.

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CONTACT

Le Clair Obscur Address: 82, rue de la Seine - 14 000 Caen FRANCE

Artistic and technical contact: Frédéric Deslias leclairobscur@gmail.com +33 (0)6 80 57 38 37

Administration contact, Les Indépendances

Mathieu Hillereau les-independances@orange.fr +33 (0)1 43 38 23 71

Florence Bourgeon bourgeon.f@free.fr +33 (0)6 09 56 44 24

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