Laurent Duthion: Coefficients de réalités :: until April 27, 2008 :: La Criée center for contemporary art, Place Honoré Commeurec – Halles Centrales, 35000 Rennes, France.

Based in Rennes, artist Laurent Duthion is a confirmed experimenter with sensations, objects and environments. Intensely curious about scientific research, he works with soil and crop researchers and has spent time in the Antarctic collecting samples of odours and discovering new vegetable and animal species. For Duthion the question is not one of blindly applying scientific experiments to the sphere of art, nor of claiming to revolutionise science with an artistic vision. He roams the fields of art and scientific research in order to upset our certitudes and put our perception of the body and space to the test. Art and science come up with new possibilities for human freedom, especially via their capacity to put together critical visions of our individual and collective relationships with the world.

At his exhibition at la criée centre for contemporary art, Laurent Duthion will be presenting ten experimental creations including:
– events at the private view: an underwater tasting using a sculpture-object (Aquarhine) and a buffet based on recipes invented by the artist
– installations that disturb our retinal and olfactory perceptions: fragrant synthetic fat, a reflective microbead wall, and Porte de Fresnel , a magnifying door
– a sculpture-object and a film testing the capacity of bodily energy to produce images: the Bolex-Mobile bicycle and Sunfest, an experiment filmed on the Arctic ice pack
– a topography of words and images covering the entire floor area and making palpable the experimental processes used by the artist (Paysage des négociations)
– the presence of an animal, a vulturine guineafowl, representing both an aspect of living systems and a visual logo.