Where imagination is the only limitation

A fusion of art, animation, and technology offered an ecstatic, as well as a provocative visual experience at the Novembre Numérique Festival. A merging of the real world, virtual and augmented reality (VR, AR), this is the seventh year of the feat presented by Alliance Française. 

Traversing through 14 cities in India, the festival offers three unique sets of exhibits. ‘Midi Minuit’ (Noon/ Midnight) is an augmented reality exhibition. ‘Escape’ highlights cyber surveillance and the pervasive digital environment. The third selection comprises virtual reality (VR) experiences, which one gets to be a part of by wearing a headgear at the VR corner. 

‘Midi Minuit’, curated by Aurélien Jeanney, creative director of Maison Tangible, a Paris-based design studio, the exhibition project beads together 11 eminent artists. 

Aurélien asked the creators to imagine the cycle of day and night, and the cycle of life. Each of the created images got an animated twin. The art pieces spring to life on mobile screens when detected by Aurélien’s studio app. “Like magic, you can see a new story of the artwork on the app,” explains Aurélien.

‘Birds’, by Florent Remize, has five feathered creatures, seemingly perched on branches, on a scarlet backdrop. Through the app window, the birds rotate to merge and reshape into an owl, with a bluish tint in the background. Tom Haugomat’s ‘The Tide’ depicts a day-night cycle, with the sun, and the moon moving across the sky, over water that merges with the sky on the horizon. The night colours differ, and so do the depicted living beings in the artwork.

‘Strange Encounter’ is a cityscape with highrises, crafted using shades of blue and pink.

This sleepy fantasy, by Théo Guignard, all of a sudden, projects the hustle and bustle of a futuristic city when seen on the app screen. There are other equally mesmerising art-and-animation works — ‘Sunset In California’ by Kim Roselier, ‘The Knight’ by Juliaon Roels, ‘Windows’ by Johan Papin, and ‘Tarot’ by Lila Poppins. The other beautifully crafted art projects are Vincent Mahé’s ‘Mars’, François Maumont’s ‘The Island’, Bruno Mangyoku’s ‘Never Trust Your Friends’, and Pierre de Menèzes’s ‘Blood Bath’.

“I asked the artist to tell stories, but not to tell everything. The spectator can have his own story,” says Aurélien.

His tour, with the exhibition, traverses Ahmedabad, Pune, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Bengaluru, and Chandigarh, six of the 14 cities covered by the festival.

“The idea was, for me, to add another story to the image you can see in front of you.” The “spectator” becomes an “actor” in the exhibition. The project lets you remain amused, and enjoy art as you did as a kid.”

All the artists were asked to work with a set of eight colours. Some artworks took longer to complete. There’s hand-painted, as well as computer-assisted work. “I take technology as a tool, like my brushes. When you mix it with art, everything is possible. The only limitation is your imagination,” Aurélien said. He considers the present as the beginning of a big new era of art mixed with technology. “AR, VR, Artificial Intelligence, all these tools are going to change art forever. I assume, most times for the best because it will increase the creativity of the artist.”

‘Escape’ is a collection of videos that provoke thinking. ‘Dopamine’ — a part of a web series that unravels how applications capture our attention, ‘Windows 93’ — an imaginary OS on a webpage, ‘FaceGlitch’ — dealing with our privacy in the digital medium, ‘Where Is My (Deep) Mind?’ — how computer programs develop AI from data, ‘Deux Visions’ — an imaginary photographic encounter between a photographer, and Google’s servers, ‘Predictive Art Bot’ — an algorithm that creates artistic concepts combining media headlines, and ‘Vigilance 1.0’ — a video surveillance game, offer an opportunity to critically assess the digital space.

The VR selection showcases art videos. ‘Circle Time Opera’ — a 360-degree visit of Paris, exploring unseen views of monuments, and ‘La Seine’ — showing monuments, as seen from the banks of the river, are part of the selection.