JOANIE LEMERCIER
Photo by Tanti Sofyan
An audiovisual piece by Joanie Lemercier and James Ginzburg
Visuals: Joanie Lemercier
Music: James Ginzburg and Yair Glotman
Production: Juliette Bibasse
The original creation of Blueprint was commissioned by STRP biennale 2015
Joanie Lemercier is a French artist primarily focused on projections of light in space and its influence on our perception. Lemercier was introduced to creating art on a computer at age five by attending classes on pattern design for fabrics taught by his mother. The threads of his early education grounded his interest in physical structures: geometry, patterns, and minimalist forms. As Lemercier’s work evolved, he began to play with these concrete structures through the physics and philosophy of how light can be used to manipulate perceived reality.
Since 2006 Lemercier has worked with projected light, and he co founded visual label AntiVJ in 2008, with artists Yannick Jacquet, Romain Tardy and Olivier Ratsi. He worked on stage design for festivals such as Mutek (Montreal, Mexico) and worked alongside artists such as Flying Lotus (special show at the Roundhouse London), and with Portishead’s Adrian Utley (as part of the cultural Olympiads, London 2012), and architectural projections all around the world. In 2010, Lemercier turned his focus on installations and gallery work, and exhibited at China Museum of Digital Art, (Beijing), Art Basel Miami and Sundance film festival 2013.
In 2013, Lemercier founded a creative studio focused on research and development of artworks and experiments that use projected light in space. He is represented by Muriel Guepin Gallery in New York City.
The BLUEPRINT series
Blueprint is an ongoing project by visual artist Joanie Lemercier (FR), and sound artist James Ginzburg (UK). The first iteration was made as a site specific installation in March 2015 for STRP biennale, Eindhoven.
The work interrogates the notion of blueprint as the intersection of ideation and architecture, a map that leads from formlessness to form. It explores the view of architecture as both the endless repetition of the cosmic order, and as a shelter from the infinite, a human construct that brings the capriciousness of nature into perspective.
With Blueprint, Lemercier and Ginzburg translate the immateriality of space, architecture, and causality into a choreography of structural elements. The installation is formed from a central monolithic tower that is flanked by two large screens and activated by light projection and sound. Together, these tell a story of the cosmos and architecture, climaxing in an anamorphosis.