Gaël Abegg Gauthey
Polaroïds
My photographic approach is based on a creative paradox: giving a physical existence to the immaterial. This series of Polaroids is an artisanal response to the age of dematerialisation.
Inspired by my collaborations with choreographer Darren Johnston [Array] and my fascination with Japanese minimal avant-gardism, particularly in fashion – reflected in the haughty bearing and sculptural presence of the subjects photographed – I construct visual spaces where algorithmic inferences meet my fascination with the beauty of mathematical patterns, inspired in particular by Penrose’s paving patterns, orchestrating a collaboration between artificial intelligence and my artistic direction. The subject is never isolated but integrated into a formal system that encompasses and defines it. I deliberately chose the Polaroid medium for its immediate materiality and uniqueness, attracted by the tangible thickness of the medium and the unpredictability of chemical development, which echoes the random probabilities guiding digital generation tokens.
This work questions not only our contemporary relationship to the image, but also the very nature of photography and its relationship to reality. Through these rigorous compositions, built in part by algorithms, theatricality paradoxically becomes the guarantor of a new authenticity, questioning the boundaries between human creation and artificial generation.
2023
France
Polaroïds
