MAXIME MATTHYS
FACTORY #5
[UN]INNOVATION
Faced with the extent of the ecologic crisis and to mitigate the collapsing risk of our civilisation, technological innovation would seem to be the panacea. In the framework of the Résidence 1+2’s “1+2 Factory” programme, and in partnership with the CNRS Occitanie Ouest and the Institut de recherche en informatique de Toulouse (IRIT), Maxime Matthys set out to deconstruct this belief by producing several works that question our relationship with technology and offer a dystopian vision of the future phenomena resulting from its massive use.
Maxime Matthys offers a reflection on the possible danger of some of these phenomena. Love center, created with the help of thermal imaging, captures the heat released by a data centre when it automatically creates artificial romantic poetry. Taking the form of a series of thermal photographs, this work propels us into a future where machines would become able to have feelings, that love and create, and raises the question of the possible alienation of the human species from its own technological inventions.
IRIT : The Institut de recherche en informatique de Toulouse is a joint research unit (UMR) of the CNRDS and the universities of Toulouse Capitole, Toulouse – Jean Jaurès, Toulouse III – Paul Sabatier and Toulouse INP. It was created in 1990 from the merger of three laboratories and has never ceased to welcome new researchers and research teams, thus covering a broad spectrum of the computer science discipline. Due to its multi-tutelage nature and its staff of 700 people, its scientific impact and its interactions with other fields, the laboratory is one of the structuring forces in the computer science landscape and its applications in the digital world. On current topics such as artificial intelligence, security, the Internet of Things and Big data, IRIT has all the skills needed to fully embrace these themes and is able to address a number of societal challenges. Humans and their environment are at the core of its research, enriched by collaboration with other scientific disciplines. The connection between the science world and society is always a challenge, and the artistic medium is an important vector to explore. Previous collaborations of IRIT with the plastic artists, theatre groups and video artists have allowed, through dialogue and sharing, to satisfy the insight of the art-science decompartmentalization. The partnership with the 1+2 Factory programme was a new test of the laboratory’s scientific and technological skills in the face of questions and photographic know-how.
Maxime Matthys is a Belgian artist, born in Brussels in 1995. In 2015, he graduated from the ETPA (School of Photography and Game Design) in Toulouse with a Bachelor’s degree. At the crossroads of various practices, his work questions the influence of new technologies on our contemporary way of life. He uses different media: photography, video, performance, sculpture, and installation, to produce works where reality intermingles with the virtual world. Maxime Matthys regularly collaborates with scientist to deconstruct the myths linked to new technologies and thus to imagine new languages. His award-winning work has been shown at the Maison Européenne de la Photographie and has been the subject of solo exhibitions in Europe. His last project, 2091: the Ministry of privacy was exhibited at the Centre Pompidou as part of the fourth edition of the Mutations/Creations event. He is the author of Sortez Couverts, a performance produced during the coronavirus health crisis and relayed by over 80 media in France and around the world. He lives and works between Rennes and Paris.