Justine Emard
Hyperphantasia / Des origines de l’image - Installation - 2022
presented as part of the exhibition Panorama 24
From the depths of the cave to the depths of our brains, Hyperphantasia creates a space where 36,000 years of image technology meet; searching for the origin of images.
In the Palaeolithic era, people plunged into the depths and darkness of caves, seeking to inscribe the work of the human mind on the rock walls.
In 2022, computational sciences allow us to analyse large amounts of data and generate predictions.
Using a scientific database about the Chauvet Pont-d'Arc cave, an artificial neural network was trained to produce new images of prehistory in order to create the work. A video wall slowly comes to life, giving a glimpse of a "new" prehistory, of the parallel imaginations of our ancestors. In 2021, a CNES and ESA mission began studying the evolution of sleep in space. Encephalographic data recorded over several nights made it possible for the artist to work with dream signals from space.
These signals from the depths of our unconscious are embodied in 3D printed dream architectures. A landscape stemming from the mental images appears in the light of the video.
From generating new images of prehistory using machine-learning model to the extrusion of dream sculptures from space; we follow the birth of new images from the depths of our imaginations that will merge and synchronise.
This work was produced as part of the off-site residency of the Observatoire de l'Espace, the cultural laboratory of the CNES (Centre National d'Études Spatiales).
Justine Emard
Justine Emard lives and works in Paris.
Her work explores the new relationship developing between our lives and technology.
By combining different image media – from photography to video and virtual reality – she situates her work at the crossroads between neuroscience, objects, organic life and artificial intelligence. Her installations take as their starting point experiments in deep learning and the dialogue between human and machine. Since 2016, she has been collaborating with scientific laboratories in Japan. She was awarded the French Institute’s Hors-les-mursresidency in Tokyo in 2017.
Her work has been exhibited in museums such as the NRW Forum (Düsseldorf), the National Museum of Singapore, the Moscow Museum of Modern Art, the Itau Cultural Institute (Sao Paulo), the Cinémathèque Québécoise (Montreal), the Irish Museum of Modern Art (Dublin), the Mori Art Museum (Tokyo), the MOT Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, the Barbican Centre (London), the World Museum (Liverpool), the Pernod Ricard Foundation (Paris), the CNES – Centre national d’études spatiales (Paris), the Musée du Louvre-Lens and the ZKM, Zentrum für Künst und Medien (Karlsruhe). She has taken part in international biennials such as the Moscow International Biennial of Contemporary Art (Russia), the Tongyong Triennial (South Korea), the Karachi Biennial (Pakistan) and the Chengdu Biennial (China).
In 2020, she was commissioned under the “IMAGE 3.0” national photographic project by the Centre national des arts plastiques (CNAP) in partnership with the Jeu de Paume in Paris. In 2021–2022, and again in 2023–2024, she will be a visiting artist-teacher at Le Fresnoy – Studio national des arts contemporains. Her work features in several national and international collections. In 2023, she was awarded the “100 femmes de culture” prize in France. Justine Emard is artistic director of the permanent exhibition at the French Pavilion at the upcoming World Expo in Osaka in 2025.
