Article published on the 2009-10-01 Latest update 2009-10-03 14:01 TU
Starting on the metro, from one end of the line 11 to the other, Pierre Giner and Patrick Vidal will be blasting their sound piece “ACR remix”: a series of experimental radio shows broadcast over the speakers in the trains and stations.
At the newly-renovated Centquatre public artist space, Turner prize-winning British artist Fiona Banner will be screening her experimental film “All the World’s Fighter Planes”, which projects a montage of images of planes of war for more than an hour on the vast walls of the former undertakers’ stables.
At Stalingrad square, Costa Rican artist Priscilla Monge will be setting up an installation piece that resembles a football pitch, where onlookers are invited to try their hand at scoring. But beware the booby-trapped surface, which was a hit when it was first exposed at the Liverpool Biennale in 2006.
In Buttes-Chaumont Park, where many installations are based this year, Claude Closky will be projecting his film exploring the bizarre and enthusiastic culture of air guitar competitions. Pierre Ardouvin has a disorienting light installation that promises to deform our perceptions and blur the line between dream and fantasy.
Hidden in the forest, Nathan Coley has set up giant scaffolding with the simple phrases: “There will be no miracles here”, “We must cultivate our garden” and “Gathering of strangers”.
And culminating the Buttes-Chaumont experience will be Noël Dolla’s abandoned red umbrellas, strewn around the top of the highest hills.
Over in the Latin Quarter, Canadian artist Janet Cardiff reconstructs a choir singing Spem in Alium (1573) by Thomas Tallis, with individual speakers each playing a single voice, visitors can move about, hearing the whole choir or individual singers depending where they are.
In a series of supermarkets spread across the neighbourhood, Gilles Stassart will be directing a series of performance pieces exploring our relationship with food.
In the Luxembourg gardens, Hugues Reip will be projecting comic book heroes on screens spread around the park. Not far away at the Great Mosque of Paris, Turkish artist Sarkis has an installation that starts with a large mirror where the scent of roses is sprayed into the air, followed by a series of sounds, sights and sensations that invite contemplation of the earth and sky.
last year's festival