"We still have no news of the submarine".
Ex (non) votos


I don't know about you in the morning, but there's always a moment when I want to know what happened during the night.
So I turn on the radio.
I'm usually in the bathroom, brushing my teeth or washing up: a moment when I make myself fresh and available for the day ahead, a moment when I look in the mirror and tell myself I'll be fine: I'm presentable.
In the background, one news item follows another.
Listening to them, I'm often dismayed or flabbergasted, more rarely joyful, often simply indifferent.
My inner thoughts follow the course of my emotions.


"We still have no news of the submarine".


This phrase, expressing concern about a small submarine that mysteriously disappeared while exploring the Titanic, stuck with me.
It came back like a leitmotif, creating a suspense that was hard to escape.
The information wasn't really news at all: we were left "without news"...
But above all, this "news" was added to so many others...
In this uninterrupted daily flow of information, we sort it into a hierarchy.
There's the mass of information that we may or may not record, and then, in the middle of this mass, there's the news that stands out and that we'll share.
"Did you hear that?" "Did you see that?" "That's crazy!" Etc... So many little ritual phrases that we use with the people we meet and that punctuate our days if a piece of information is even remotely significant.
But whatever the intensity of our reactions, what strikes me is that, a few seconds or minutes later, it's as if they'd never existed...
So, in my bathroom, I can listen to the news that a tornado has devastated the south of the country, that a boat has sunk again in the Mediterranean or that M'Bapée has scored a double, but the mirror still reflects the same image back to me (and I continue to brush my teeth)...


"We still have no news of the submarine"...
 
I'm sure there's a lot to be said for the way in which the information we receive is manufactured.
But I wanted to focus on how we receive it, what it does to us.
One thing leads to another, one news item leads to another, the experts are divided, the reactions multiply, and we survive the tumult by continuing to brush our teeth.
All these catastrophes, events, statements and positions end up forming a kind of magma where everything blends together.
The spectacle of the world has turned us into spectators.


















... "The little submarine is said to have exploded at the start of its mission"...



"We still have no news of the submarine".

Installation

The exhibition features 122 ex-(non) votos dedicated to information.
Each piece is presented in the form of a small framed sculpture accompanied by a piece of information taken from the daily news stream. (Frame sizes from 10 x 18 cm to 20 x 30 cm).

Wednesday June 21 - Occupied West Bank: three Palestinians killed by Israeli drone strike
Wednesday June 21 - Holiday: ice creams a big hit in Dijon
Wednesday June 21 - Iranian opposition banned from demonstrating in Paris
Wednesday June 21 - Controversy after the dissolution of "Soulèvements de la Terre
Wednesday June 21 - CFDT: Laurent Berger hands over to Marylise Léon
Wednesday June 21 - Consumption: is 100% juice good for you?
Wednesday June 21 - Disappearance of the Titan submarine: search intensifies and oxygen reserves dwindle
Wednesday June 21 - Champions Cup: La Rochelle meets Leinster in the group stage
Wednesday June 21 - Employment: one French person in four aspires to become an entrepreneur
Wednesday June 21 - War in Ukraine: the European Union reaches agreement on a new package of sanctions against Russia
Wednesday June 21 - Culture: journalist and novelist Claude Sarraute passes away
Wednesday June 21 - Missing submarine: sounds captured by a Canadian aircraft revive hopes of finding the explorers
Wednesday June 21 - Climate: tropical nights as early as 2040 in France?
Wednesday June 21 - Missing submarine: "The fact that it's a noise repeated every 30 minutes is comforting", says Michel L'Hour, renowned underwater archaeologist
Wednesday June 21 - Joe Biden puts Xi Jiping in the "dictator" category
Etc..........


Ex-Votos / Ex-(non) Votos

EX-VOTO. n. Expression borrowed from Latin. According to a vow. A picture, figure, object or inscription placed in a church in memory of a vow made in sickness or peril, or in gratitude for a favor obtained. To hang ex-votos.
The term is made up of the Latin ex ("as a result of", "according to") and voto (from votum, "vow"), derived from vovere votum ("to make a vow"), and comes from the expression ex voto suscepto meaning "as a result of a vow taken "1.
The deposit of these objects is characterized by the creation of a sacralized bond between the dedicator and the tutelary deity.


Ex-votos are part of a long tradition that has fallen somewhat into disuse today.
If traditions influence our behavior regardless of our wishes, ex-(non)votos show us to be the subjects of unwanted information.
Today's news adds up to yesterday's, creating the landscape of a world with a reality we don't live in.
We remain powerless over this information, and any wishes we may formulate upon hearing it remain forever without effect.
We can pray to the information god, but he remains deaf, busy preparing what comes next.

Onurb NapeihcS


Onurb Napeihsc is my chosen pseudonym.
It's the mirror image of my name, and it's one that's imposed itself on me.
My artistic approach has always been based on an attempt to find peaceful spaces away from the tumult of the world.
For me, the studio is a magical place, a bubble.
My expression has become abstract, focusing on colors and shapes, constantly striving to create a balance between them.
In this sense, my mobiles represent the synthesis of everything I love.
I've come up with a neologism: abstractif, meaning a desire to abstract oneself from the hustle and bustle of the world.
You never really know how ideas are born (by brushing your teeth?) but when I thought of ex-(non)votos, it occurred to me that they didn't quite fit in with my approach.
Of course, there's a play on shapes and colors.
But first and foremost, there's an explicit "message", something I'd carefully avoided until now.
While the pseudonym has thus become an obvious choice, I didn't want it to constitute a new identity.
This pseudonym is the mirror of my name, just as these ex-(non)votos are the mirror of what I am, the mirror of reality, an image given to me.












"We still have no news of the submarine".
Ex (no) votos
NFT (you)

Working on these small sculptures created an invitation to continue.
Not leaving them frozen in their original state is also in line with the idea that, while the dissemination of information is the same, its reception is multiple.
Digitization offers tools for infinite variations in color, form and texture.
The temptation was therefore great to expand the collection.
Beyond their physical reality, each ex-(non) voto was given a graphic treatment that multiplied it.
It thus became clear that the collection as a whole formed a family to which an identity had to be given.
Whatever one might think of NFTs, I saw them as the cradle for this tribe. I named them Uspectators (Us spectators).
As a result, 300 NFTs were created, and launched to coincide with the exhibition.
And to keep with the spirit, for me they're NFT Shut up...