Exhibition
The Long Now (Verena Friedrich) at the Mois Multi

Sat, 02/16/2019 -
Sun, 04/07/2019
Regart, centre d’artistes en art actuel

Soap bubbles are airy, fragile and evanescent, and last only a few seconds. Art historians and others have often understood them as symbols of the fleeting nature of human existence, in particular in the 17th century vanitas, where they refer to the passage of time and pay tribute to the innocence of childhood. Responding to the precariousness the bubbles express, Verena Friedrich attempts to create perpetuity, using a machine that automatically produces soap bubbles in a controlled atmosphere inside an airlock compartment. The bubbles, iridescent prisoners in a bell jar, remain suspended for several minutes. As they wait, visitors witness this gravity-challenging phenomenon that holds the orb balanced between the ephemeral and the eternal. Eventually, the bubble bursts, and another is blown. Thus the cycle of wonder and apprehension continues. Friedrich’s work straddles the boundaries separating art, technology and science. Acting on supposedly inalterable natural processes, the artist seeks to push boundaries and thwart the finite. Her machines evoke advances in life sciences, such as our attempts to artificially prolong life.
 
About the Mois Multi
Presented each year in February, Mois Multi is an event produced and organized by Les Productions Recto-Verso. The festival program features innovative works in the fields of multidisciplinary and electronic art. Mois Multi reflects the conceptual and technological changes that have led to unprecedented forms and practices in the “multi arts.” The uniqueness of the event stems from its interactive performances, installations, immersive environments, and works that fuse languages, materials, techniques, forms and artistic procedures of all kinds.