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Posters
thing off". We can't even backbone the thing on the mains, which is a pain. So we end up without UPS and without mains return. There's nothing like good old ana logical equipment. By comparison, digital stuff is always telling us what we can and can't do. It leaves traces whereas analogical stuff doesn't. In Matrix, Morpheus' phantom ship is analogical. When they are spotted by the robotic vi ral octopuses, they cut off all their digital equipment and just keep on with their good old analogical systems. This is becoming a real ity today. We are conducting ex periments at the Abode of Chaos to figure out how we could carry on with only analogue equipment. With analogical equipment, there is an enormous distribution of the frequency spectrum. Therefore I leave no trace. In the digital world, there is a binary coding, which is memorisable and interpolable. For the policing of digital devices,
there is also the example of GSM which works on the triangula tion principle. Once again… we're back in science-fiction. In 1996 a Reuters photographer was fired for having used Photoshop to ex aggerate the smoke after an Israeli attack on a Hezbollah controlled Shiite suburb of Beirut. After that, a computer technician developed a programme that can instantly rec ognise any digital modifications of any photograph. Because to re work a photo, one has to use raster mode which involves interpolating the adjacent pixels. Whatever the special effects, at 99%. It's an in terpolation in the algorithm that will search for the adjacent pixel, and therefore it automatically de tects it.
great believer in the self-fulfill ing prophecy, hence my distopia. What's amusing about this kind of prophecy is that it's bound to work. Imagine or visualise some thing that could be described as a prophecy… but as soon as you fo cus on it, a kind of self-fulfilment takes place.
debate, but anyway, I am a firm be liever in self-fulfilling prophecies. I believe in the strength of word, in the strength of embodiment. There is a moment when you man age to break away from the attrac tion… when you hit so hard that, mechanically, embodiment occurs.
henceforward be 'standardised' and delivered in a regular fashion because we do not have the means to employ security personnel."
L.C. - Exactly… that's what we find on a general scale. They no longer have the means to employ security personnel and there is a refusal to talk. You only have to look at the L.C. - And the current forsaking of situation in France. Who are the the word? L.C. - In other words… the magic big sellers in literature and philos thought… which joins dreams to reality? T.E. - Yes, but the word has become ophy… we are confronted with a total devolution. flesh. The strength of the word has always been that. Fuck! WakeT.E. - Absolutely. (laughs) up you dead people! Go to any lec T.E. - Indeed. We are in a peri ture hall… you see the guys, you L.C. - Or at least, bending reality od where we are losing our iden push them and push them. The to your will? tity and losing our direction. guys beat each other up and bin Even if it's totally banal, the po go… the word has become a reali litically correct dominates. And T.E. - It's the same old question ty. Then the guys get pulled out of nobody dares to do or say any that has haunted me for twentyfive years. The Jews have done a lot the lecture hall. I find that incredi thing. Why do people like us man L.C. - Would you describe yourself as of work on this idea in the Cabala. ble. I am actually banned from lec age to make an impression… at Utopian? turing in certain places. I was told: the price of an extraordinary ex Is it the event that creates the in "The consequences of your lec penditure of effort? Because peo dividual? Do you create the event ture were very difficult to manage ple no longer dare to stand up for T.E. - (hesitation) Yes, because uto or does the event create you? Of what they stand for. One day a ma course it's a splendid philosophical Mr Ehrmann, so you lectures will pia is a search for truth. I am a
jor French politician - who died recently - was asked: which peo ple in the Lyon region have made an impact on their era. After cit ing one or two classic names like Mérieux and Aulas, his interview er prompted: Thierry Ehrmann? At that moment the "father of sci ence" paused before answering: "He's a free man and he has re mained a free man". He had to give a definition. Old Raymond Barre was quite a character. I had several run-ins with him… He was one of my teachers at school. In any case, there you have it …being free is very important! And people are no longer free. It's very important. L.C. - I recently came across the following information: wealth is apparently more unevenly distrib uted on the planet today than at any time during the entire history of humanity, including the Middle Ages and Antiquity...
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T.E. - That's right. We are facing a form of degenerated capitalism. Twenty years ago roughly 15 bil lion dollars changed hands on fi nancial markets. Today, the figure is more than 2700 billion dollars per day. We have created fictive is sues which means we are currently creating phoney money with a to tally phoney level of GDP growth. It doesn't make any sense any more. That's why I say that we are at the Gates of Hell in the alle gorical and magnificent sense of the term. The system has worn out… needs to be replaced. It's like a man whose T4 levels have collapsed, his transaminase and Gamma GTs level have rocketed… the prognosis is bad. The West, including Japan and the whole of Asia in its modernity, is really like an old man. A dead man, worn out and corrupted at all lev els and particularly in his capital istic organs. All the indicators are in the red. Regulation tools… flow
controls. …None of these tools will stop the rot. Everything can be bought. Everything has a price, in cluding pollution. The dematerial isation of the financial sphere and the capacity of men to imagine fi nancial instruments like futures (i.e. which gamble on future pric es) is very interesting. You can buy futures of issues… futures which "short" the securities of the prin cipal stock exchanges… futures of anything you can imagine. As though we had arrived at the end of the runway. That's why we need to reinvent. Personally, I believe in a Renaissance. L.C. - That is precisely the theme of my next question! Let's indulge in a little forecasting... from where, and how, do you imagine this renaissance coming? T.E. - We may laugh about cyber punk but it's a type of fiction that has had an impact on reality and
which now goes back twenty-five years. It contains a very strong "transversal" quality. You define it a hundred times better than any one else. Indeed that's how I met you. It's in sub-cultures and transcultures. There are loads of ad jectives to describe this form of activity Fortunately a small net work already exists which carries within it the genomes necessary for the apparition of a new ge nome, an additional genome in fact. L.C. - How would you define art? T.E. - Art is a space where every thing is possible. A place where to tal transgression can take place, because from a purely legal stand point, art is the only area that still enjoys impunity. Take Lukas's per formances for example. Art allows him to explore areas that would get him locked up immediately if he didn't have an "artistic" atti
tude in the meaning attributed by Marcel Duchamp. And it's exact ly because he has an artistic atti tude with deliberately organised acts and the necessary detach ment that his work cannot be de scribed as spontaneous acts… that we don't consider him a psycho path. What is the difference be tween Lukas and a psychopath? Lukas is a sculptor/artist. He ritu alises, codifies, installs, writes and questions. He always locates him self within an art historical per spective. If that were not the case, we would be "guilty" of commit ting acts that may or may not be reprehensible? This is not the same as someone who works directly on himself without thinking. In the latter case, we would no longer be in the field of art and the authori ties would be justified in taking an interest. L.Z. I think it is easier to say what isn't art than what is. Attempts to
manifestation