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In philosophy, social sciences, and logic, the term “meta” takes on the meaning of “beyond” (as in metaphysics). Jean-Claude Meynard I use “meta” to speak about the body… human bodies (anatomy) and also architectural bodies (habitats), urban bodies (cities), and the social body (society) in the sense of going “beyond” first appearances. Yet I also use it according to its other meaning, mutation and metamorphosis. “Meta” thus allows me to evoke the double subject in my work: showing incessant metamorphosis beyond static appearances. In fact, I represent an arborescence in space that constitutes itself as a body in movement. By choosing one fork in the road over another, the body creates or designs its own form according to the itinerary upon which it embarks. This composition in complex arborescence recalls the idea that everything evolves and, in particular, every body. In other words, a trajectory starting from a trunk or a matrix will branch out into networks in a chaotic manner and proliferate. H-F. D. With this composition of the body in arborescence, we thus rediscover the same visual freedom that we had in “Identity,” this liberty that allows us, at will, to reconstitute the form we can or want to see.
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J-C. M.
C’est effectivement la même idée de choix et de liberté qui guide le cheminement. Celui-ci se fait alors par pure fantaisie. On peut jouer là encore avec toutes les échelles et promener son regard de façon totalement aléatoire. Pour suivre le développement de la forme dans l’espace et son mouvement, le spectateur adopt-era une vision labyrinthique avec la liberté que cela suppose. Dans cette configuration, on va où l’on veut et l’on ne se trompe jamais : on peut passer par un point C ou Z pour aller de A à B, sans règle. Il n’y a pas de plus court chemin, il n’y a pas de ligne droite, il n’y a pas d’erreur puisqu’il n’y a pas une vérité, une solution, mais de multiples possibles. On est libre de son chemin visuel et en le parcourant, on crée son propre labyrinthe et donc sa propre figure. C’est exactement comme si l’on effectuait des zigzags, des allers-retours en laissant traîner un fil : au bout d’un certain temps on s’apercevrait qu’avec ce fil, on a composé des réseaux et une figure dont la forme nous est propre. Le fil ne sert plus à retrouver son chemin, mais à dessiner, à créer un chemin : une nouvelle définition du fil d’Ariane. It is, in fact, the same idea of choice and freedom that guides the movement along the pathway. Pure fantasy creates it. Once again, we can play with different scales and move our eyes around in a completely ran-dom way. In order to follow the development of the form in space and its movements, the spectator will view things as if in a labyrinth and benefit from the freedom this supposes. In this configuration, we go wherever we want to and we never make a mistake : we can go by way of point C or Z to go from A to B, without a ruler. There is no shortest path, no straight line, and no error since there is no one truth or solu-tion; there are multiple possibles. One is free within one’s visual field and by moving through it, one cre-ates one’s own labyrinth and thus one’s own figure. This is exactly as if we were making zigzags, back and forth, while letting a string drag behind us : after some time, we would realize that, with this string, we had made networks and a figure of our own. H-F. D. You suggest a “maze” with its circulation networks taking on different meanings according to various and unique spectators’views. J-C. M. The “maze” is an architectural model, but with regard to my work, we can also speak of anatomical sections revealing evolving, living architectures. H-F. D. Concerning this idea of living architecture, we can take a building as an example. At first glance, it appears as a whole, even though it is composed of very distinct J-C. M. With this external viewpoint, one can see perfectly H-F. D. Moving from the portrait to the self-portrait to the body, you are, in fact, maintaining the same structure but you are changing the scale, increasing the notion of identity and enlarging the idea of being… |
J-C. M. If we use the word “increase,” it should be read as an increase in space. With “Identity,” I was evoking interiority whereas here I am dealing with exteriority. H-F. D. This means that in this dynamic relationship of exchanges, both belong to the same universe. J-C. M. By shifting the point of view, one moves from the image of this mass to the image of the individual and vice versa. The change in scale is there in the pas-sage from an individual space to a social space. We exit the private, internal, imaginary world to melt into the collective, external architecture. H-F. D. Using the term ”meta”, you therefore designate this sliding from one body to another and this constant interaction between the one and the whole, which J-C. M. Yes, and I do so especially keeping in mind all the |
H-F. D. Harmless at the outset, in one fell swoop, the event (in the Latin sense of the word evenit: something is happening) creates an enormous distorsion with exponential effects in time and space. One could also cite the example of the domino effect (chain reaction), a house of cards or the fortuitous encounter between two identical grains of sand that block an hourglass, stopping movement, time and life. J-C. M. That’s precisely what I am trying to show, how particular “chance” circumstances, the inherent randomness of living, can modify the form of the whole through a system of infinite consequences. “Meta” is this beyond-the-body, this going beyond the singular being that connects to the whole while maintaining its own identity, even within a construction and a much |