The Tyranny of Distance
Dominique Blais, On the Other side, 2018
Captions, sound recordings, translations
Dominique Blais, Interval, 2014
Copper wire, 50 meters
"Sébastien: So, very much connected, no pun intended, to this idea of the materiality and materialization of distance, we have a work of Dominique Blais. So Dominique Blais work is coming from a piece he did five years ago, in the context of a show I curated called Art by Telephone Recalled. So at the time we recorded a telephone conversation where he asked us to calculate the distance between where he is at a certain moment and the exhibition space. So for example, if he is in Paris, there is the distance between Paris and Angers, and another distance between Los Angeles and Paris. And in each exhibition place we have a piece of copper wire cut so that it is a multiple of this distance.
Anna: For example if it's 9,000 kilometers between Los Angeles and Paris, the wire should be 90 meters, or 9 meters. Between Paris and Angers, it’s 300 kilometers, so it’s 3 meters. Or 30 meters. And if he moves at some point during the exhibition, the wire will be modified by adding an additional segment or removing a part to correspond to the new distance.
Sébastien: The voice communicating this work is also very important because copper wire is what is used to carry voice across a telephone signal.
Maud: There is a nice connection here to several of the works in the exhibition. As you said Sébastien, the copper wires reference a form of technology that tries to abolish distance, and many of the works in the exhibition also reference this dream of immediacy or communication without mediation. So this work becomes both a measurement and a connection over distance."
This text is an excerpt from the performance The Infiltration by Joshua Schwebel whose project was to infiltrate the curators’ position in the exhibition. Read more