Samuel Bianchini Audience works, 2013
Specifications
Slipcase, 31.1 x 21.3 x 3 cm
Contains two volumes
Volume 1: 19,8 x 29,7 cm, 208 pages
Printed on Triple Star Silk 170g
Thermo sensitive silkscreened hardcover
Printed by Arte-Print
Silkscreen by SP Production
Bound by Delabie
Volume 2: 13,97 x 20,95 cm, 192 pages
Printed on Cyclus Print 90g
Softcover in Cyclus Print 150g
Printed by Arte-Print
Bound by Taelemans
Slipcase made by Boekbinderij
Production
Edition of 67 numbered and signed copies, 8 copies for Audience Works - Showcase for touching and 25 artist's proofs
1999/2013
Produced and published by mfc-michèle didier in 2013
With support from the Agence nationale de la recherche (ANR), France, and MESHS-CNRS (Maison européenne des sciences de l'homme et de la société, Lille) in the framework of the research project PRATICABLES. Dispositifs artistiques: les mises en ?uvre du spectateur / PRACTICABLE. The Work of Art as Dispositif: Setting the Stage for Audience Participation and the Fondation nationale des arts graphiques et plastiques, France
© 2013 Samuel Bianchini et mfc-michèle didier
NB: All rights reserved. No part of this edition may be reproduced in any form or by any means without written permission of the artist and the publisher.
Audience Works, mfc-michèle didier latest publication, is an artist's book that in first instance takes an interest in the work's public, in other words, in its own audience.
Seventeen interactive installations, produced by Samuel Bianchini between 1999 and 2012, are considered with the rigorous precision scientists are known for. The study concentrates exclusively on the audience, who act both as spectators and simultaneous for active agent. Parallel to the creation of these installations, the artist, who is also a teacher-researcher, has here documented through photography how the audience acts on his works, in order to formulate Audience Works, an individual work on its own.
Audience Works proposes a series of photographs shot by Samuel Bianchini who has taken a important number of pictures of the public acting in his installations, more than 30 000. A selection of almost 1000 photographs is here published. The analytical observation of these images reveals the intimacy of the public, who firstly discover and then comprehend the work, through fumbling, surprise, joy, wonder, fear or frustration. The artist becomes an ergonomist or even an ethnologist, using his own work as a field of research.
A second volume, entitled Manual, is dedicated to the text, legends written for the 17 installations, published in 8 languages: English, Arab, Chinese, Spanish, French, Japanese, Portuguese and Russian. The editorial form that is chosen here is reminiscent of the layout commonly applied to manuals and guidelines of electronic equipment.
With Audience Works, Samuel Bianchini extends the reactive character of his works and focuses on the participative dimension of his audience by publishing a book whose cover is responsive to temperature; the ink reacts to the heat of the hand. The title of the publication only appears if the reader is able to handle the object, without any gloves.
Samuel Bianchini deeply values experience: one must live and practice the exhibition, and not solely contemplate it. The viewer is inseparable from Samuel Bianchini's creation process. The work can't exist without the other.
