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« My work investigates the Body in its existence in contemporary society, according to different and convergent questions in the Aesthetic, Social and Political fields which come from experiences and observations about the relationship of the Power to the Body. I explore how the Power, in its different forms and with a plurality of objectives, techniques and tools, penetrates the Body and establishes, by a set of codes and norms, modes of perception of the Body and modes of existence. I question the effects of the Power on the Body and Identity and, in parallel, the possibilities for emancipation and independence. My intention is in the questioning, an open questioning which is given to the spectators in different artistic forms to persist through themselves.
Time is an important component in my artistic process. Time - to think - to experiment - to produce - to place in space. Many of my artworks require a significant time to be realized, from a few months to several years, in the same way certain projects have several forms as if to signify the possibility of a creation time without limit or end and, by extension, a constant questioning ».
Laurie Joly, 2022.
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(2003-2006) I am interested first in corporeal identity which I approach in relation to the materiality of the body and according to the relationship between body, space and time. This part forms my first experimentations of the Body as an artistic medium within actions and performances in which the photographic or videographic image takes part as raw records, and then in a research of transversality.
(2006-2009) I focus on the Western Contemporary Image of the Body from the point of view of its standardized and normative dimension. Face with its main characteristics, Symmetry, Smooth and Homogeneity, I develop the idea of an evanescence of corporeal identity in a series of videos, videographic and sound projections and videographic and sound installations. A part of my work shows a homogenized body which results from an erasure practice of its distinctive signs and marks, an erasure directly applied on the body itself or on its image. Another part of my work presents a mechanical body, often fragmented in the image and in space. It corresponds to an experimentation time of the spatialization of the Image. The body of the spectator becomes a parameter in my art process in relation to its dimensions, its senses, its physical and sensitive limits. It is also thought, as well as Image and Sound, through the question of movement.
(2009-2023) Then, I question Surveillance, today electronic, from the point of view of the very close relationship between Body and Technology and with regard to the use of data which identify the Body, locate and track it in space and time. I develop the idea of Co-presence as a parallel and simultaneous presence of the body in virtual space, a numerical and electronic presence in its nature, immaterial and originally imperceptible for the human senses. Here, my artistic intention is to give perceptible the co-presence to the spectators, through sight, hearing or touch. In this context, protocol incorporates my artistic practice. I create different types of rules, photographic, mathematical, temporal, technological..., from which I give shape to performances, (interactive) video and/or sound installation, series of photographs and digital compositions.
(From 2016) My current work questions Gender in its identity assignment and the modes of transmission of its norms in History and Culture. The normative and standardized production of a social identity according to biological sex brings me, on the one hand, to speak of an identity « on feminine » and an identity « on masculine », in order to associate the process of production with the issue of conformity, and thus to accentuate the political dimension in the construction of identity. On the other hand, it focuses my art practice on the question of deviation which enables to take distance from norms and creates other possibilities. The deviation takes shape in space through gesture, movement of body. I especially use Photography, Video and Performance, in which I incorporate text. These texts can be based on essays, notions and expressions. They have both artistic and theoretical characteristics and they intervene as an integral part of my work, sometimes becoming an image. Together, Body in Action and Text interact to reveal frameworks and their limits, and to question the possibilities of detachment.
Laurie Joly, 2020.