A Kind of Constant Loss of the Normal Level of Reality

Christophe Cellier "Altered states" 2006

If I speak or if I write, I bear witness to my vision of the world. All the more so when I generate or capture the faces that the networks deliver to me. Among these images there are apparitions that verge on miracles, but also spectres of horror, which I merely reveal. The posture of the creator remains singular: it is a matter of claiming a relation to the world. But in the age of algorithms, this relation is mediated by countless invisible agents. In the midst of a forest of signs and datasets, I pursue my path, which owes much to archaic beliefs still attached to human works. I continue to believe in the existence of images, in their hidden powers, even though these powers are now automated and multiplied by machines. What might appear to be a profession of faith is, in fact, an obvious truth for the artist navigating the junkspace of the visual.

With these preliminaries past, I may allow myself more precise assertions concerning my approach to the portrait. The generative device I construct resembles more a spectral engine than a simple camera. Waiting is no longer the time of the photographic pose, but the latency of computation, and the model,human or digital, is inscribed within this temporality. From this duration there remains a residue, a trace of data, which I strive to capture. And then there is this staging, this little theatre of realities, now played out by four: the subject, the dataset, the operator, and the algorithm.

What I am developing today are my cognitive and critical capacities, able to influence and curate the emergence of outputs. And such a project is not entirely rational, nor does it burden itself with didactic justification. A phrase by Antonin Artaud, taken from The Umbilicus of Limbo, corresponds rather well to my way of perceiving things: “A kind of constant loss of the normal level of reality.” And perhaps, in the end, I recognise myself in that loss, except that this loss is no longer singular, but systemic, accelerated by the proliferation of generative systems, which haunt our imaginaries as promise.