«I am an interface, the place where the elements are catalyzed,
where the transitions are activated.»

Arthur Debert develops a proteiform practice that finds its origin
in collective work and exchange. Constantly in dialogue with each
other, his work takes shape in displacements, multiple meetings and
collaborations. In the center of these exchanges is the question of
the transmission and survival of knowledge, both as well subjective
as anecdotal and memorable. The transitions and different states
of thought or objects bearing knowledge are then transcribed by
means of installations, videos and editions - supports on which the
artist comes to fix the indeterminate state of things and his experience.

Licia Demuro

Polyphases

Objects are lost and disappear. The forms they represent,
they do not die, they are functions. We, we activate
these images and so update their content in other places
and at other times. We are the impermanent interpreters
of these forms that go through us from hand to hand,
their functions forever intact.

There are only flows, people and objects; movements
and metamorphoses, from one state to another. We are interchangeable,
Polyphasic. We can come and go without alteration,
navigating between these statutes, and thus cross these indeterminate states
and go through the critical points where we are all at once.

I am an interface, the place where the elements are catalyzed,
where these transitions are activated.
Here support, subject and object are interdependent,
dancing the same round as the artist, the curator and the collector.
I tinker with shapes and functions, creating hybrids that are not intended
initially neither effective nor productive nor beautiful.

It only lasts a long time and masks and dances end
always shut up momentarily, so I redistribute the roles
to all players before the round resumes.
I am the instrument of gestures I never learned.
I am the camera that records these movements,
these traffics of influences that are being traced before my eyes.
On the ship world, we are many to think so,
and from time to time we happen to hear each other from afar
like an echo. We dialogue for days, sometimes
months, one word after another, preparing platforms
in view of our future appointments between equal collaborators.

We will surely have to redensify the dialogue,
put languages ​​back into play as well as find ways to
continue working together and not against each other.
We will have to re-include games and mistakes where we wanted it no more,
and to create, from scratch, the weapons to go beyond our egos.

I do not know anything about the rest of the trip except that we will be several to do it,
that it is by moving together that we will create the new spaces we will need,
in the bunkers of our transport and not on the islands deserts that line the road.
I will be the peddler, interpreting with all my strength
the dances that I have found useful, the forms that seem necessary to me
and I will gather together all the works that we will need.

Arthur Debert, July 2015.