By Mathieu Merlet Briand, Multimedia device, 2016

Centrally arranged on a blue background, two large perforated aluminium discs rotate relentlessly on themselves, like barrel organs. On one side, a screen seems to decipher the disc’s codes, while a large motionless hand stands on the other.

Through his research around the question of materiality in digitals, the study of binary systems, the language of the machine, the artist invites us to apprehend the digital universe in a sensitive way. This language is an encoding consisting of 0 and 1. Like a perforated card (1 corresponding to a hole, 0 to a blank), the disc contains in it the encoding of a song’s lyrics. A sensor detects the perforations of the disk to read the data, the screen simultaneously transcribes its deciphering and reveals the encoded information. Through this device, Mathieu Merlet-Briand seeks to make tangible and perceptible the material reality of digital data.

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Credits

Project developed with Anaïs Lerendu (curator), Didier Bouchon (engineer, EnsadLab) and Thierry Briand (engineer); completed with the support of the Reflective Interaction group of EnsadLab, research laboratory of École nationale supérieure des Arts Décoratifs — Paris.

Exhibited at Espace Pierre Gilles de Gennes – Paris, 04.18 – 07.15, 2016.