Delphine Chapuis Schmitz, WAITING2BGHOSTS-AGAIN, 2017. View of the installation at Swiss Art Awards, Basel. Photo: Office fédéral de la culture, Guadalupe Ruiz, 2017
WAITING2BGHOSTS-AGAIN
2017. HD video with sound, four screens, room, carpet
it felt LIKE there was no escape like no1 and noBody could evR @us stop BLinKing REW-olving BLAnK- &and BliSsing heRe &noW stanDing AT–/ a SIGN* wAIting 4BLinDing |–NOone eveR noticed A SinG –/Nor aStouND _/but aS time §tArted to de-cease 2 D-cRease NOW –| long a/go (some1) siezed a LIGHT ∨ –|ONE real-iZed –––– reaLy –––– "TIL noBuddy THinK –––– reallY –––– 'til MEANing had started 2 Dcease<d –/s o ft l y ReadliZing any1 SIGHT / thaT §uDDenLY reALizED __/WellOW as inLIGHT as iN GELB as IF <anything ELSE __/
Four screens are arranged at 45° in the corners of a space with the proportions of a cube. The scrolling text and the height of the screens evoke the means of information in public transportation while the blue electric carpet is part of a seemingly lenient device. To this efficiency, coming from the communication society, contrasts a white noise that emphasizes language. The latter resorts, with invention, to the various syntactic and typographic constructs of “texto” in mobile telephony, or those resulting from concrete and spatial poetry. The synchronization of the screens prevents us from catching up with information that is lost with the movement of the spectator, and since it seems therefore permissible to read between the signs, this work reminds us that еvery thought issues a Throw of the Dice.
Bio
In her artistic practice, Delphine Chapuis Schmitz (born in 1979 in Boulogne-Billancourt, France, lives in Zurich, Switzerland) explores ways of making sense and the poetic potentials of language(s). Combining her own writings with appropriated fragments from different source material, she composes situative texts embedded in the context of their appearance. Her writings take shape in performative readings, video and audio installations, as well as (online) publications.
Her work has been shown at various venues including Centre Pompidou, Paris; La Galerie, Noisy-le-Sec; Museum Haus Konstruktiv, Zürich; Corner College, Zürich; CAN-Centre d’art Neuchâtel; Milieu, Bern; Fondazione Ratti, Como. A Cahier d’Artiste „Delphine Chapuis Schmitz“ was published in 2015 by ProHelvetia/Edizioni Periferia, with a text by Chus Martinez. She obtained a Swiss Art Award in 2017, grants from the Kanton of Zurich (2013), and from City of Zurich (2015, 2017). In 2016 she was in residency at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris.
She completed a Master Degree in Fine Arts at the Zurich University of the Arts in 2012 after having obtained a PhD in Philosophy in Paris in 2006.