Breaking down the media

Starting from the premises of a society increasingly governed by science and its technological implementations, Sebastien Noel founding member of London based art collective Troika will be discussing the conceptual underpinnings behind their work, and explore their intimate relationship with the physical act of making.

Through an overview of recent projects, spanning sculptures, drawings and large scale immersive installations, Sebastien will discuss making as a political act of empowerment and how the processes at play become an integral part of their conceptual position. Wether injecting coloured smoke into wooden structures, apparently reversing the flow of water, using arcane display technologies, discharging high voltage electricity on paper or weaving with playing dices, Troika will expose how inventing the very medium supporting their work contributes to their ongoing ontological and phenomenological inquiries. 

Through a series of behind the scene examples, Troika will examine how their practice often subverts both technology and scientific methods for artistic purposes and towards unpredictable outcomes. In this approach making is not the mere final step in a project but becomes an integral part of a creative act which fuses inspiration, research, ideation, experimentation, and making into a wholesome platform for artistic expression.

Troika is a London-based collaborative art practice formed by Eva Rucki, Conny Freyer and Sebastien Noel in 2003. With a particular interest in perception and spatial experience, their works challenge our prescriptions of knowledge, control, and what it means to be human in an age of technology. Troika’s work has been shown in numerous exhibitions at institutions worldwide, and is represented in the permanent collections of the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, British Council, The Art Institute of Chicago, Victoria and Albert Museum and the Museum of Modern Art New York. Troika is represented by Kohn Gallery, Los Angeles, and OMR Gallery in Mexico City.

Image: “Limits of a known territory” - immersive installation at the NC Arte foundation for contemporary art, Bogota, Colombia ©troika, 2015