Catherine Ikam & Louis Fléri

Profile

Pioneers of digital arts, Catherine Ikam and Louis Fléri create installations in which visitors interact with virtual characters.

"The issue is not technological virtuosity but the emotion that these artificial characters awaken in us. This comes from the fact that real-time interaction creates the illusion that an encounter has taken place." C.I - L.F.

These intermediary beings open the doors to a world of parallel realities, artifices and decoys: faces fall apart, artifacts fall in love, generative portraits are composed and decomposed in front of the spectator.

"It is a work on identity, on the way we perceive ourselves through the prism of technology that allows us to revisit different archetypes. There is this word of Emmanuel Levinas which seems to me very right: "The face which looks at me affirms me". We exist according to what we look at. We exist according to what looks at us. It is the face-to-face which makes us exist. Face to face with the other who can be our own face. Face to face with our desire to be lured..." C.I.

Trained at the school of Peter Foldès, a specialist in computer animation, and a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Catherine Ikam has been working since 1980 in the concept of identity in the electronic age.

Louis Fléri started working with new technologies in the early 80s. A freelance journalist specializing in new images, he became an audiovisual producer in 1987 and has made several videograms in the field of contemporary art.

Their artistic encounter dates back to 1987 during the creation of the opera Valis commissioned fot the 10th anniversary of the Center Pompidou, of which Louis Fléri was the producer alongside IRCAM and the Musée National d'Art Moderne. Then there was the common desire, which has never been denied, to work together, to conceive new pieces in the digital field.
Their collaboration has lasted ever since.

Biography

Catherine Ikam and Louis Fléri are a couple of French artists who live and work in Paris.

Forerunners in the field of video and virtual image, Catherine Ikam and Louis Fléri explore the concept of identity and appearance in the electronic age. They examine the relationships and interactions between the living and the artificial, the human and the virtual.

Exhibitions (selection)

2020/2021

Réel/Virtuel, Galerie W, Paris

2019

Point Cloud Portrait - Cedric, 25th Festival International d'Art Vidéo de Casablanca (FIAV), Morocco

2018

V.I.E. V.ideo I.mage E.volution, group show, Galerie W, Paris

Artistes & Robots, group show, Grand Palais, Paris 

Biennale des Arts Numériques, Centre des Arts d'Enghien-les-Bains, Enghien-les-Bains, France

Des femmes dans la photographie, group show, Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris 

Point Cloud Portrait - Jeanne, Recto VRso, 1st edition of the Festival d'Art Numérique de Laval, Laval

2017

Media Arts Festival, UNESCO Media Arts Creative City Gwangju, South Korea

2016

Points Cloud Portraits, Centre des Arts d'Enghien-les-Bains, Enghien-les-Bains

2015

Atout Paik, group show, Europeans Heritage Days, Prieuré Saint-Pierre

2014

Unpainted Faces, DX Galerie, Bordeaux

Nuit Blanche, Maison du geste et de l'image, Paris

2013

Deep Kiss, 50 ans d'art vidéo, group show, Friche de la Belle de Mai, Marseille

Show-Off, group show, Espace Cardin, Paris

2012

Nostalgia is an Extended Feedback, group show, Nam June Paik Center, Seoul

2009

Deep Kiss, FIAC, Paris

2008/2009

Digital Humains, Galerie Albert Benamou, Galerie Chicheportiche, Paris

Nuit des Images, group show, Arte Video Night, Grand Palais, Paris

2007

Digital Diaries, Retrospective, Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris

2006

Can We Fall in Love with a Machine, group show, Woodstreet Galleries, Pittsburgh

2005

Oscar, Paris à Shanghai, group show, Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA), Shanghai

2004

Digital Sublime, group show, Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei

2002

- Media City Seoul, 2nd Biennial of Video Art of Seoul, Seoul Museum of Art, Seoul

2001/2002

Created reality, Maison Hongroise de la Photographie, Budapest

2000

Agora 2000, IRCAM, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris

Clones, Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris

1999

Portraits. Réel/Virtuel, Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris 

Monographs (selection)

2016

Points Cloud Portraits, Centre des Arts d'Enghien-les-Bains, Editions Centre des Arts d'Enghien-les-Bains, Enghien-les-Bains

2007

Digital Diaries, Retrospective, Jean-Luc Monterosso, Pierre Restany, Paul Ardenne, Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Editions Monographic

1999

Portraits. Réel/Virtuel, texts of Paul Virilio and Jean-Paul Fargier, Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Editions Paris Audiovisuel, Paris

1991

Catherine Ikam, Pierre Restany, Maeght Editions, Paris

1980

Catherine Ikam, Musée National d'Art Moderne, Editions Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris

Prizes

2014

- Guest of honor of the Prix Opline pour l'Art Contemporain ⎮ Catherine Ikam

2019

- Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur ⎮ Catherine Ikam

2010

- Officier des Arts et Lettres ⎮ Catherine Ikam

2000

- Prix Arcimboldo de la création numérique ⎮ Catherine Ikam

1992

- Prix Imagina, category Art ⎮ Louis Fléri

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