biography / biographieBorn in 1959, Christian Lavigne destined himself to become a scientist, often studying mathematics. Writing poetry became his main activity.
He contributed to several magazines and a poetry cabaret, directed a free radio show, founded "L'Art Vu", a poetry and art magazine. Uniting writing and design via mathematics he discovered the concept of "Graphènes", graphic words inspired by a secret geometry, what Kandinsky called "The vocabulary of shapes".
The Christian Lavigne's first artworks are linked to the abstract art tradition, but he developed a coherent personal poetical aesthetic universe, more and more based on mythologies and symbols. He uses to say that he likes to travel (by mind) in "distant cultures" (time or space distance).
The artist expresses his art with many different materials and techniques: ink and paint, photography, research in the fields of transparency and fluorescence, electronic animation, computer and Internet technologies, use of high-tech machines (laser cutting, water jet cutting, 3D NC machining, Rapid-Prototyping).
He created the words ROBOSCULPTURE, TELESCULPTURE, and CYBERSCULPTURE, for different kinds of computer sculptures.
He is well known as a pioneer of these new disciplines.
With the Prof. Mary VISSER (USA), he will release a book on the digital sculpture history.
In 1992, Christian Lavigne founded with Alexandre Vitkine (1910-2014) the international artistic group "Ars Mathematica", for promotion of new technologies in sculpture, and realized "The First World Wide Exhibition of Numerical Sculpture" (Paris, 1993). This event becomes a network of simultaneous and interactive exhibition: INTERSCULPT, and is organized each 2 years in partnership with the Computer and Sculpture Forum (USA) since 95, FasT-UK (GB) since 97, DAAP Zone (UP in Cincinnati, USA) since 97, Prism lab in AZU (USA) since 99, U. of HongKong since 99, U. of Wanganui (NZ) since
2001, and IIT of Kanpur (India) since 2003. See: www.arsmathematica.org . Updating the CIRES project, that he wrotes in 1988 for the teaching of the computer sculpture, he launches in 2005 the idea of a CREATRON (Centre de Ressources Européen de l'Art de la Technologie et de la Recherche des Objets Numériques) - www.creatron.org .
Christian Lavigne thinks that XXInth century artists have to succeed a Nouvelle Renaissance.
Christian Lavigne also develops many activities for the meeting of North and South cultures. He founded in 1998 the NGO TOILE METISSE (www.toile-metisse.org), to promote French speaking artists on the Web, and to teach multimedia and electronic arts, especially in Black Africa.
Victim of Muslim fundamentalism and corruption at an exhibition in Senegal in 2004, Christian Lavigne think artists should all defend freedom of expression and that digital tools and networks are an opportunity for the creation and solidarity . |
statement / philosophieMy main purpose is to contribute to promote a New Renaissance, i.e. to organize and to fete the reunion of Art, Poetry, Science and Technology, with the people who don't like the compartmentalization of the minds, who despise the reign of technocrats and specialists narrow.
I first approached the arts as a poet who enjoy to travel (by mind) in "distant cultures" (time or space distance). I became a painter and a sculptor because I needed to write poetry in 2D, 3D, and n-D if necessary. With my scientific background, and also because I haven't studied in an "école des beaux-arts", I started without any complex to use computers and various machines, in the early 80's, for my artworks.
I think that today the word "virtual" is the flag of a dangerous ideology. Artists must question "the progress", and build bridges between the (so-called) "virtuality" and the actuality. The digital arts are rooted in the material, and the cybersculpture doesn't forget the body!
But, of course, it's not sufficient, and it's even dangerous, to be only fascinated by the technologies. Too many artists are following the last theoretical or technical fashions that excite the switched-on bourgeoisie and the official art market. The dignity of the artist is to be honest and authentic (first with herself/himself) and to try to transcend the reality. Our true strength is to succeed in surpassing the present and our personal situation, reaching the foundations of the human condition.
Today, in the context of a "global world", we must be very vigilant about the freedom of expression and the Human Rights. We have in our hands the most powerful scepter against the obscurantism: the culture. It would be a crime to use it with negligence and superficiality. Beyond the geographical or the temporal frontiers, the poet, the artist, is a Human speaking to another Human about life and joy, death and sadness. I'm in favour of a transcendental, sacred and agnostic art.
We do not need any god, or any permission, to pass the baton of love, indignation, irony and beauty. From hands to robots, all tools are good to move, to arouse and to free the human mind, in a fraternal perspective. |
