FIGURES ARCHÉOSPHÉRIQUES
2017

Remains of building materials abandoned in public space were gathered and crushed. The resulting granulate from diverse materials such as bricks, asphalt, rock, concrete and mortar were mixed and bonded together with cement into a heterogeneous recycled concrete. This new hybrid material appears as a multifaceted artificial stone in the sanded and polished faces of cast geometrical object bodies, presenting a cross section of the concrete, its inside and different components. The other sides of the concrete volumes are encased by precise grey cardboard sheetings which define the three-dimensional shapes, framing the random and unique imagery of the polished concrete in a conceptualized and constructed form.

Informed by a partly documentary, but much more fictional and speculative approach to the found material, the objects explore a potential re-conceptualization of this material in terms of form and presence. They are not relics, but artifacts and architectures with a non-linear memory: manufactured documents which have become independent figures, without a fixed place or classified time. The future presence of the material is defined by spatial shifts and reorganization into conglomerates and volumes. Information memorized in the material is hereby fragmented, partially lost or overwritten within a new context. Reminding of concrete architecture or functional form design, the objects embrace the immense spatial and temporal dimensions of material transformation and material cycles connected to construction processes within a tangible form and human scale.

Recycled granules (various building materials from the public space of Paris), grey cement, grey cardboard | 8 objects: 10.4 x 37.6 x 17.1 cm, 17.1 x 27.8 x 7.7 cm, 20.7 x 28.8 x 10.7 cm, 30.8 x 22.3 x 16.5 cm, 8.5 x 39.8 x 23.3 cm, 17.5 x 37.5 x 10.4 cm, 7.7 x 27.8 x 17.1 cm, 44.1 x 30.3 x 7.0 cm

Exhibition view: Galerie Bob Gysin, Zürich, 2017