Samuel Bianchini: The Experience of Apparatuses

Samuel Bianchini, a French artist and researcher born in 1971 in Nancy, explores the relationship between technology, perception, and participation. His early work "Pour l'instant" (1996) uses a Super 8 projector illuminated by its own beam, reflecting on the apparatus itself. In the performance "Une poursuite" (2006) in Nancy, a searchlight on the Tour Thiers highlights absence. Interactive works like "Sniper" (1999) and "Tous ensemble" (2007) engage viewers in collective action, while "Discontrol Party" (2011) at Gaîté Lyrique allows crowds to overcome surveillance. "Contretemps" (2004-2010) features a glass surface where touching advances or rewinds a film of repeated actions. "Valeurs Croisées" (2008) uses digital displays showing distances to viewers, creating a kinetic mirror of data. "À distances" (2011) presents an LED screen that sharpens or blurs based on viewer proximity. Bianchini often introduces error into his code, as in "En réalités" (2009) with Sylvie Tissot, where a machine fails to display "I am a bugged program". "Keywords" (2011) attempts to interpret CAPTCHAs but is doomed to fail. "Enseigne" (2012) is a luminous sign that rarely makes sense, pausing when it succeeds. Bianchini documents his works in an online library called "dispothèque" and in the artist book "Audience Works". Recent solo shows include "Audience Works" at Galerie Michèle Didier, Paris (2013) and "Operation Operation" at Galerie Ilan Engel, Paris (2012).