Le temps de l'écriture électronique

GRAND PALAIS, PARIS, EXPOSITION LETTRISTE
10-23 SEPTEMBRE 1986

Concept

In an exhibition of 'painting-painting', Fred Forest, always one step ahead of the departing trains, presents a work on a support of illuminated newspaper with electronic diodes. In keeping with the theme of the exhibition, the artist's text is a sort of ironic, distanced reflection on our relationship with writing, and what it has become: from clay tablets to today's digital screens... The movement and luminescence of these letter-signs, on the glowing strip where they scroll and intertwine, are fragments of meaning that appear and disappear continuously, like the irreversible drifts of our memories and our consciousness. From time to time, a digital clock suddenly emerges before our eyes. It imperatively calls us to check the time on our wrists, to become aware of the passage of time, of the brevity of life, and ultimately of the futility of our presence in front of this luminous band. Fred Forest's luminous diary in its ineluctable march tells us many other things too...
Invited in a very personal way by Roland Sabatier to take part in this exhibition of 'Lettrist' sensibility, Forest saw this as an opportunity to work on the letter to the letter, using a luminous newspaper, which would be a great first in a public exhibition in France! By choosing this medium, he intends to distance himself clearly from an artistic movement with which he has never had any aesthetic connection, and to use a context that is, all things considered, fairly traditional, which will only serve to highlight the forward-looking commitment of his own artistic practice.

Device

Electronic lighted newspaper, Sayag Électronique, double line, model A/425, 2m50, on a burlap-covered picture rail.
Historically, it would be interesting to compare Forest's use of this medium with that of American artists such as Jenny Holzer and Barbara Kruger.

• Catalogue exposition " Art, Vidéo, Cinéma ", Roland Sabatier, Grand Palais, Paris, 1986
• Texte de Michel Servières, Collège international de Philosophie, Paris, 1986