CLAUDE CLOSKY
Manège
Centre Pompidou, Paris
16.05 - 31.07.2006

MANÈGE

16 flat screens are regularly spaced at eye level along the walls of Espace 315, their blue display marking the absence of video signal.
The monochrome gives way, on each successive screen in turn, clockwise, to one of the thousands of image sequences collected and here «put through their paces» by Closky, in a gesture evoking the repetitive exercises in the manege that discipline the movements of the horse, developing its abilities. Here the artist takes a corpus of everyday images and disciplines their movement and their progress through the arena.

CLICHÉ

The images in Manège were found on the internet and all subjected to similar treatment. They are 4–20 second sequences depicting the accomplishment of a simple, distinct action – from beginning to end, without interruption – such as the moving of an object, the transformation of one thing into another, a journey. «The speed with which these little skits unfold and move on offers a spectacle of the world, detached and ironical» (J.-P. Bordaz).
These are utilitarian images, intended to communicate visual information with a minimum of ambiguity, simple, stereotypical «snapshots» connected to everyday life. «Absurd and insignificant as they are, the Manège imagesequences present a kind of accomplishment – a task completed, an action carried out – each one leading to the next in an infinite repetition of the conviction that the world accords with our desires» (F. Piron).

CHANCE

The original speed of the video sequences has been reduced, reconstructing them as a succession of stills (5 images per second, maximum). The definition is poor, and the subjects neither exciting nor aesthetic. Each sequence is accompanied by a sound loop, a repetitive instrumental drawn from contemporary popular music. «The low-tech character of the images that Closky offers in Manège is echoed in the individual soundtracks that accompany the image-sequences, which are taken from music composed in accordance with commercial conventions» (P. Mattick & K. Siegel).
The sequences succeed each other in time and progress through space, restricted to one screen at a time: when one begins, its predecessor has ended. The images never come to an end and the limits of the underlying corpus are impossible to identify, for they succeed each other in random order. This unpredictability gives each sequence,as it appears, the air of a word in a text in continuous composition.

VIEWER

The progress of the image draws the eye with it, from one screen to the next, from left to right, whether the viewer follows on foot or simply turns about in the centre. One is also guided by the rhythmical sound track broadcast by the active screen. The sound travels round the room, signalling the interruption of the immobility of the steady blue by the activity of the image. «Manège occupies time and is concerned not to occupy the space – as is witnessed by the orbital trajectory of the sequences and the inertness of the 15 screens alongside the one that is live. (...) The crux of the artist’s intervention lies not in the quantity of sequences produced but rather in regulating the «volume» of their appearance, set to the very minimum» (M. Muracciole).
This visual sparseness, combined with regularity, is a way of letting viewers find their place – or offering them a chance to change it.