You wanted to be a real artist, with a real studio, a place where you could retreat to paint with real gestures. You wanted to throw paint, to let it run with energy. You wanted to recover ancient, primal, unforgettable gestures, the gestures of Janet Sobel (before Jackson Pollock’s drippings), of Joan Mitchell, of Joyce Pensato, of Katharina Grosse. You wanted to be like them. You wanted to be them.

At first, the machines help you. Artificial intelligences animate the forms you imitate. You believed forms were silent and motionless, but the machines give them movement and speech. The forms speak to you. They send you signs. You can no longer sleep, nor leave your room, nor close your eyes. You are stunned.

Little by little, you realize that the forms animated by neural networks produce nothing but noise, a noise that gently hypnotizes. You understand that the machines have stolen from all of us. They have stolen this love story we once had with forms.

So you flee, you break through the ceiling, pierce the floorboards. You cover the forms with paint to silence them. You go out, you hide in forests, you draw on rocks, you paint directly onto the sea and the clouds, colors that belong to no one. Still, the machines follow you, they watch you and try to recognize your traces, as if they were their own and as if all of this belonged to them.

One day, you will be able to close your eyes. To breathe freely. You will be spider, wolf, tree, stone, lichen, snail, ants, bird. You will be nature.

Credits

• Réalisation Gwenola Wagon
• Production Le Fresnoy Studio national des arts contemporains
• Chargée de production Pauline Thyss
• Composition musicale Sig Valax
• Images Gwenola Wagon
• Textes Pierre Cassou-Noguès
• Assistante tournage Marie-Bénédicte Cazeneuve
• Seconde caméra Cécile Bicler
• Avec Cécile Bicler, Marie-Bénédicte Cazeneuve, Gurwann Tran Van Gie et la participation de Marie Bonnet
• Montage Gwenola Wagon
• Conseil montage Cécile Bicler
• Scénographie Jonathan Binet
• Graphisme Nuno da Luz
• Post production Le Fresnoy Studio national des arts contemporains
• CPER CornelIA (2021-2027) Co-construction responsable et durable d’une Intelligence Artificielle