Tear Gun
For Yi-Fei Chen, a graduate from Design Academy Eindhoven, her impossibility to speak up in self-defense during a confrontation with her tutors resulted in an internal burst of frustration, but externally only defenseless tears emerged. After that she decided to acknowledge this weakness, but reacting to it through her graduation project: “Tear Gun”, a minimal device that freezes tears instantly, ready to be fired in self-defense.

Bleu Remix
In his spectacle-installation Bleu Remix, Yann Marussich returns to a theme originally explored in Bleu Provisoire (2001), a spectacle in which a mysterious blue liquid oozes through the layers of his skin as though it were the final effect or by-product of his body’s inner processes. In Bleu Remix, the artist once more invites the viewer to experience an intimate journey through the corners of his body. Each time the spectacle is performed, a different (local) musician accompanies Marussich. This unique, singular confrontation establishes a new relationship between the sound and image. The meeting of the two artists brings an element of risk and uniqueness to the event, as if the music explores the spectacle repeatedly, resulting in new ways of perception.

Untitled: (A Search for Ghosts in the Meat Machine)
What does it mean to be human? At first glance a simple question, the idea of being human is an unstable construct, continuously recrafted. Recent technological innovations allow us to redesign ourselves profoundly— from networked prosthetics and artificial intelligence, to the genetic code of life itself. Can our behaviors be reduced to algorithms? Can our bodies be upgraded with nonorganic integrations? Can sentience itself by manufactured in a lab? This set of nine sculptures examines personhood from anatomical, psychological, genetic, biochemical, behavioral, algorithmic, personal narrative and memory. In many ways, this installation is an emotional confrontation with being quantifiable.

Living pod
file festival
Light, shape variations and mimicry meet in Living Pod. In front of the false twin pieces, the user can slowly set garment A in motion using a light source. Garment B then imitates piece A in an exaggerated and unbalanced fashion, changing structure through miniature electric motors activated by light sensors that are sown through the garment. Using flat-pattern cutting techniques, Ying Gao was able to give the process fluidity and flexibility. In addition to the mechanical movements of the garments, Living Pods underlines two fundamental aspects of today’s fashion system: confrontation and imitation. The garment plays a mediating role between man and his environment. By using light, Living Pod is similar to project Walking City, which uses air to make the pieces look like they are breathing.

Le Mannequin
Alain Séchas est intéressé par des questions de forme, d’équilibre et de couleur. Il pousse le public à la confrontation, à s’interroger, tout en nous proposant une réflexion humoristique sur la vie quotidienne. On pourrait le qualifier d’artiste plasticien puisqu’il utilise de nombreux outils et fait diverses installations intégrant plusieurs disciplines.

Bataille
Bataille is a confrontation between two physical actors : on one hand Hassan Razak, specialist of body percussion and on the other hand Pierre Cartonnet, specialist of acrobatics. This confrontation is a complex, paradoxical and ambiguous battle. Is it a realistic dance or a choreographic fight ? Is it a contract accepted by both parts or a unilateral violence ? Is it a fool’s game ? Is the violence undergone or granted ? Masochist or sadist ?

孙原和彭禹
ВС Юань и Пэн Юй
Old persons home
Sun was born in Beijing and Peng in Heilongjiang. Sun and Peng are contemporary conceptual artists whose work has a reputation for being confrontational – they have previously used live animals in their installations. As their contribution to the 2005 Venice Biennale, the duo invited Chinese farmer Du Wenda to present his home-made UFO at the Chinese Pavilion. They won the Contemporary Chinese Art Award in 2001. Their 2009 solo exhibition, “Freedom”, at Tang Contemporary in Beijing, was seen by some critics as a memorial to the Tiananmen Square incident. The installation featured a large fire-hose hooked to a chain that erupted water spray at a distance of 120 meters.

Джузеппе Рандаццо
transmutation
Transmutation#01 is a generative system composed of two interacting multicellular agents in a Voronoi spatial configuration. Each cell owns a color/saturation information. The cells interact with each other and with the other agent. The two agents are different. The circular one, the most active and in evolution, constantly tries to reorganize its shape and color structures, connecting similar colors in concentric formations. Moreover the saturation and shape of its colors aggregates are influenced by the duration and proximity of the interaction with the other pluricellular agent, whose motion is abstract and immutable. The metaphor at the heart of this system is a reference to the subject of the 2012 Gender Docufilm Festival in Rome, from which the video was commissioned, that precisely addresses the issues related to the the reengineering and the transmutation of the sexual, physical, mental identity, through the collision / confrontation with the external reality. Coded with Processing, rendered with 3Delight (via Processing). In collaboration with Filippo Ulivieri, music by Massimo Dolce.